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The Bible History 

OF 

WORLD GOVERNMENT 

And a Forecast of Its Future 

FROM 

BIBLE PROPHECY 

i 1 



By 
WILLIAM M. SMITH 

Editor "The Friends' Minister," Superintendent of Union Bible Seminary 
Author of "The Recent War in the Light of Bible Prophecy," Etc. 






PUBLISHED BY 
W. R. COX, 

Greensboro, N. C. 






PRESS OF THE APOSTOLIC MESSENGER OFFICE 
GREENSBORO, N. C. 

Copyright 1919, by Winfred R. Cox 



JAN 131920 



©01 * 559 3 74 



n^Q 



INTRODUCTION 

The average person has studied the Bible 
in parts : a chapter a day, a lesson a week, a 
Psalm or favorit portion now and then. 
The result is that few people have a compre- 
hensive view of the Bible as one Book. The 
history, the prophecy and morals of the Bi- 
ble are, to them, like so many different de- 
partments of science, beautiful and ideal, 
but far removed from our times and unre- 
lated to practical affairs. 

It is the intent of this book to emphasize 
the unity in purpose of the whole Bible. The 
author has taken advantage of the universal 
interest in the subject of world government 
awakened by the present upheaval in world 
politics to show that the whole history and 
prophecy of the Bible can be grouped sys- 
tematically about thQ subject " World Gov- 
ernment." For Biblk nis£ofy and prophecy 
have to do with events, past and future, on 
earth; and the issues are bound up in moral 
and spiritual conditions in heaven and earth. 

The eight main divisions of the book were 
originally given as a series of lectures at the 



4 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Apostolic Holiness University, Greensboro, 
North Carolina, in the fall of 1917, and taken 
down in shorthand. The stenographer's 
notes have been carefully revised and con- 
densed, in some instances, and, in other 
places, considerable matter has been added. 

It is hoped that the reading of these pages 
will make the doctrine of the second coming 
of our Lord to appear so necessary a part of 
the plan of God through the ages that it will 
become to many others, as it has to the 
author, the end toward which all other events 
converge. 

The author acknowledges his indebted- 
ness to J. Walter Malone, of Cleveland Bible 
Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, for the use in this 
book of his chart, "The Plan of the Ages," 
and is constrained to testify to the fact that 
it was a study of this chart in connection 
with lessons by its designer that first inter- 
ested him in this line of study. 



CHAPTER I. 
GOD, CREATOR AND MAKER 

Everywhere, east and west, north and 
south, people are asking questions about 
prophecy: what the great world war means, 
how near the second coming of the Lord may 
be, and many other similar questions. 

It is comparatively easy to preach a ser- 
mon on the second coming of the Lord that 
will be readily understood by those who are 
students of the Word: and yet the masses 
will go away from a talk that deals exclu- 
sively with prophecy just about as much 
confused as they were before, because they 
have not been brought up to the subject by 
proper introductions. 

It is my aim in these lectures to lay the 
foundation for prophetic interpretation in a 
proper interpretation of Bible history, and 
come up to the present condition of the world 
and its future form a measure of understand- 
ing of the whole Bible. These things can be 
made much more clear through a comprehen- 



6 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

sive understanding of Bible teaching, both in 
history and prophecy, by which method the 
beginning, that which is taking place now, 
and that which is to come are correlated so 
that they come together as a consecutive 
whole. 

One reason why people, who first hear a 
sermon on the second coming of Christ, or 
read a book on the subject, are disposed to 
discard the teaching, is, because the idea of 
the personal return of Jesus to the world and 
the accompanying events are of an order so 
entirely conflicting with what they have been 
accustomed to as in order, that they cannot 
conceive of conditions like that. But if one 
can be made to see, by a comprehensive view 
of God's dealings in the past and what He 
says He will do in the future, that these 
things clustering about our Lord's second 
coming belong to God's major pur- 
poses, so that the present is lifted out of its 
little cycle into a greater one, the second 
coming of our Lord, instead of breaking in 
as a discord, becomes plainly consistent as the 
only possible solution of the difficulties in 
which the human race has involved itself. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 7 

Title of the Series 

It may be in place to state the reason for 
choosing the title used for this series of lect- 
ures. It has been selected after a search to 
find a subject under which the past, the pres- 
ens and the future of Bible revelation 
could be correlated. It is an attempt to find 
a mountain peak from which we can see at 
one time the beginning, course and continu- 
ance of God's plan through the ages, from the 
remotest past concerning which there is a 
hint in the Bible, through the events that 
have transpired in the history of man 
onward to the most distant point in eternity 
the Scriptures suggest. 

I must admit that I am venturing on this 
first lecture of the series without yet seeing 
to the end. Somewhat like Abraham, called 
4 ' unto a land that I will show thee," it is 
taking some faith to believe that I will arrive 
at the desired end that is yet dim and dis- 
tant to me. At this time, however, we will 
consider together this subject, "The Bible 
History of World Government and a Fore- 
cast of Its Future from Bible Prophecy," be- 
ginning with the division "God, Creator and 
Maker." 



8 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

The Triune God 

We readily find the text for a lecture like 
this in the first verse of the Bible: "In the 
beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth." The large word in this text is "God," 
occurring thirty-five times in the first thirty- 
four verses of the Bible, and in every in- 
stance in the nominative case as subject of 
a sentence followed by a verb in the active 
voice. In all this chapter of beginnings God 
is active and never acted upon. 

Who is this God that is doing such large 
things? We will do well to see what He says 
of Himself in His own Book. The name for 
God in the original Hebrew is itself a rev- 
elation of His nature. "Elohim" is more spe- 
cific in its meaning than the English word 
"God." It is a plural name, like cherubim 
and seraphim, the ending "im" indicating 
more than one. This prepares us to read, 
further on in the same chapter, what God 
says: "Let US make man in OUR image," 
the plural pronoun again indicating that the 
noun for which it stands is plural. In other 
parts of the Bible it is revealed that God sub- 
sists in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost. There never was a time when God 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 9 

did not exist, nor was there ever a time when 
He was not three Persons. That is a very 
great and important fact for us to have set- 
tled in our minds in thinking about God. 

It is stated in this first verse of the Bible 
that God created something. Here we have 
another word which is voluminous in its 
sweep. It is likely that the average Bible 
reader would get as much out of the verse 
if it read "in the beginning God MADE the 
heaven and the earth," but they would fail 
to comprehend what the Bible is talking 
about. It is important for us to learn to 
carefully consider the meaning of Bible 
words, "Create" is not altogether synony- 
mous with "make." The meaning of the 
word "create" is to bring into existence 
without any material with which to begin. 
Hebrews 11:3 illustrates this: "Through 
faith we understand that the worlds were 
framed by the word of God; so that things 
which are seen were not made of things which 
do appear." The world did not come into ex- 
istence by being made out of other already- 
existing material, but it was created. 

Here, then, are three great revelations 
God has given us, as equally difficult for us 



10 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

to prove as they would have been for us to 
have discovered: God always has been; He 
has always been a Trinity; the material uni- 
verse has not always been, but was created 
from nothing. 

In the Beginning 

We have lived in the midst of these sur- 
roundings as have our fathers and grand-fa- 
thers before us, until it seems as though we 
live in an everlasting world. The stars 
have coursed in the sky above, clustered in 
their constellations, ages upon ages. But 
there was a time when there were none of 
these things: no earth, no sun, no moon, no 
stars, when the great universe was one great 
empty space — and I have sometimes wonder- 
ed if even space itself was not a creation. 
There was a time when the only existing 
thing was God, (for He is the Creator of all 
things), in three Persons, and He created all 
these things we have just been speaking of. 
He brought them out of nothing by the pow- 
er and authority of His word. 

The Primeval Creation 

Some people have taken a good deal of 
trouble trying to discover the ways and 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 11 

means by which God brought things into ex- 
istence. The natural mind is always search- 
ing for a gradual process for all things. It 
wants a man to gradually get converted, to 
gradually get sanctified, and the same natur- 
al mind conceives that God gradually made 
planets, suns and things like that. By w T hat 
gradual process can you conceive of God 
bringing something into existence out of 
nothing? No matter what constructive pro- 
cesses He used, there must have been 
an instant when nothing came into some- 
thing. So of necessity the first creation 
must have been an instantaneous creation. 
With this the Scriptures agree. In Psalm 
33:6 we read, "By the word of the Lord w r ere 
the heavens made; and all the host of them 
by the breath of His mouth." In the 9th 
verse it says, "He spake and it was done." 
This is not speaking of what men call the six 
"creative days," but of that primeval crea- 
tion when things came out of nothing into 
something. Oh, to think of the power of our 
God! The Triune God looked across the 
stretches of empty space, without an atom 
of matter in them, not a speck of dust, not 
a drop of w r ater. He spoke into those vast 



12 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

vacancies and this round earth immediately 
came into existence ; He spoke again and the 
great sun rose in splendor and poured his 
beams over the scene; He spoke again and 
the planetary system came into existence. As 
fast as the words of an orator follow each 
other, system followed system, until the vast 
universe was filled beyond the reach of the 
most powerful telescope. Oh, our God is a 
mighty God! 

Human Theories of Creation 

That primeval creation was a perfect cre- 
ation. There is not much said in the Bible 
about it, just enough so we know there was 
such a creation. 

To be sure it is the general opinion that 
God created the earth in the form described 
in the second verse of the first chapter* of 
Genesis: "The earth was without form and 
void, and darkness was upon the face of the 
deep." The popular opinion, even among Bi- 
ble students of note and great theologians, 
is that God brought the earth into existence 
as a great shapeless mass, and all other 
things accordingly. 

La Place's nebular hypothesis of the ori- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 13 

gin of planetary systems was in vogue when 
I was in public school. I believe it has been 
modified somewhat now, but it will serve to 
illustrate men's theories in general. This 
scientist held that space was originally filled 
with microscopic particles of dust. By a 
process, which the natural mind readily con- 
sents to, but cannot explain, these particles 
became attracted to each other, forming 
eventually a great mass. By the friction of 
these particles against one another heat was 
formed. A rotary motion shaped the mass 
into a sphere which became the sun, and, by 
means of accelerated movement, this mass 
threw off portions, which, contiuing their 
revolution around the central body, became 
the planets; and these planets by their rota- 
ry movement threw off portions which be- 
came their moons. 

In harmony with this theory of the origin 
of things, scientists tell us that, after some 
ages, the surface of these planets congealed 
into a rocky crust, which, by atmospheric 
action and erosion, clothed themselves with 
soil. After more ages vegetation sprang up 
by some protoplasmic process. Plants evolv- 



14 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

ed higher and higher forms until eventually 
the lower forms of animal life were produc- 
ed. Darwin and his school splice out and 
consummate this body of theory by imagining 
that these animals evolved higher and high- 
er forms, from frogs to monkeys and 
monkeys to men. 

The unregenerated mind accepts that so 
readily, and grasps it so easily! But this 
Book tells us that "in the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth.'' It origi- 
nally came into existence a perfect earth, 
suitable for habitation, with all its features 
perfectly formed for the purpose for which 
it was designed. It was not created waste 
and void. 

The Primeval Earth Wrecked 

A careful examination into the meaning of 
words and the comparison of different por- 
tions of Scripture will greatly help one to an 
understanding of these first verses of Gen- 
esis. This word "was" in Genesis 1:2. "The 
earth WAS without form and void," is the 
same word as that translated " became" in 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 15 

Genesis 19:26. "His wife looked back from 
behind him and she BECAME a pillar of 
salt." Now, it would be absurd to think that 
Lot's wife was always a pillar of salt, would 
it not? But there are a great many people 
that suggest that the earth was CREATED 
without form and void because Genesis 1:2 
says that at that time it was without form 
and void. The fact is that it was created a 
perfect world, and later became without 
form and void, as the result of some pre- 
historic cataclysm which we will later en- 
deavor to discover. 

Proof of this statement is found in Isaiah 
45:18. "For thus saith the Lord that created 
the heavens; God Himself that formed the 
earth and made it; He hath established it, 
He created it not in vain, He formed it to be 
inhabited." Reference to the Hebrew, in 
which Moses wrote Genesis 1:2, shows that 
" without form" is translated from the word 
tohu. Isaiah wrote in the same Hebrew lan- 
guage, and comparison reveals the fact that 
the expression "in vain" used in Isaiah 45:18 
is translated from the same word TOHU. 
Putting the two texts together we read in 



16 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Genesis 1:2, "the earth was tohu," and in 
Isaiah 45:18, "He created it not tohu." 

Now it is plain that, if the earth was not 
created tohu, it must have become tohu after 
it was created. It seems evident that some 
disaster befell the primeval earth, wrecking 
it and leaving it tohu and bohu, (bohu 
is the Hebrew word from which "void" is 
translated). If that disaster was of a suffi- 
ciently violent character, we can imagine 
that it might have scattered the elements of 
the earth, sun, moon and stars as meteoric 
dust throughout the umVerse, and there La 
Place may begin his nebular hypothesis, if 
we must find a place for it. The Bible goes 
farther back than scientists do. They have 
to begin when there was some matter in ex- 
istence ; but the Bible begins when there was 
no matter in existence. 

The Six Days of Genesis 
In between the first and second verses of 
Genesis you can throw all the nebular hy- 
potheses, geological ages and other things 
science demands. The attempt has been 
made to take the six days described in the 
remainder of the first chapter of Genesis and 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 17 

extend them out to cover the ages through 
which the earth has evidently been in exist- 
ence, but no such questionable process is nec- 
essary. All the time science demands can go, 
as we have seen, between verses one and two. 
And, then, it seems very evident that those 
six days are days of twenty-four hours each. 
They are evidently intended to be so under- 
stood. From the Bible account alone, com- 
pared with all the Bible says on the subject, 
the unsophisticated mind would have to con- 
clude that the six days are days of twenty- 
four hours each. A description of the days 
themselves indicates this: "The evening and 
the morning were the first day." That was 
written by a Jew, originally to Jews, whose 
days began at sunset and continued through 
the twelve hours of darkness and twelve 
hours of light. This phrase follows the de- 
scription of every day. Again the fourth 
commandment says: "In six days the Lord 
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that 
in them is." Note it says MADE here not 
CREATED, so it is not referring to the cre- 
ation of verse one, but to the re-making de- 
scribed in the remainder of the first chapter 
of Genesis. 



18 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

To be sure the word "day" has other uses 
in the Bible than the designation of 24-hour 
periods. For instance, "One day is with the 
Lord as a thousand years," (II Peter 3:8). 
Again periods of time of varying length are 
spoken of as a "day." For instance, Gen. 2:4, 
"In the day that the Lord God made the 
earth and the heavens." This use, however, 
is not as common in the Bible as one might 
at first think. The word "day" is also used 
of the light period of each day as distinguish- 
ed from the night, (Gen. 1:5). But this does 
not mean that every time the word "day" 
occurs in the Bible it means one thousand 
years or some indefinite period. In fact 
^"day" always means a period of twenty-four 
liours unless the context shows a different 
meaning is intended. The use of a numeral 
with the word always marks it as applying 
strictly to a twenty-four hour period. The 
words "first," "second," etc., are used of 
these Genesis days, and the word "six" in 
the recapitulation in Exodus 20:11. We con- 
clude, therefore that God intended us to un- 
derstand that, after the lapse of a period of 
time, the length if which is not stated, He 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 19 

in six days prepared the once devastated 
earth for the habitation of man. 

All questions raised by this interpretation 
are readily settled if we stay with the Bible 
as we have begun. If we ask how the trees 
in the garden, planted the third day, were 
full grown and bearing fruit when Adam, 
created the sixth day, was ready to eat it, we 
will find our answer in Gen. 2:5. where it 
says that God made every plant of the field 
before it was in the earth, and every herb of 
the field before it grew. He made the trees 
full-grown just as He made Adam a full- 
grown man to start with. Of the animals 
also we are told, Gen. 2:19, "out of the dust 
of the ground God formed every beast of the 
field," quite evidently full-grown, as He took 
them to Adam to get a name for them. 

We cannot, in this lecture, follow Adam 
and the restored earth further without in- 
fringing on some of the following lectures, 
but it may be well, before leaving the sub- 
ject, to briefly consider two lines of teaching 
set forth in this connection. 

Four Fundamental Truths Stated 
In the first three chapters of Genesis cer- 
tain fundamental truths are briefly stated 



20 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

that it is well for us to carefully consider 
for they serve as the elements of Bible 
doctrine. To a remarkable degree the rest of 
the Bible is but an enlargement and elucida- 
tion of truths here stated, as it were, in 
germ. There are especially four such truths 
Avorthy of mention. To show their practical 
value it may be said that these four truths, 
here briefly stated, will serve as a touch- 
stone to prove the soundness or unsoundness 
of any sermon or writing purporting to be 
based on the Bible. Every sermon may well 
include them all; and any sermon that can- 
not be made to stand upon them is wrong 
somewhere. 

The first of these great truths is that God 
created all things. Nothing is said anywhere 
in the Bible that throws any doubt on that 
statement. Any suggestion about matter 
having always existed, or having come into 
existence by processes other than by God's 
creative act, must be discarded as unscript- 
ural. 

The second great truth is that all men de- 
scended from Adam. No word of Scripture 
casts a shadow of doubt on that statement, 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 21 

or raises any question or suggests a race of 
men that did not descend from Adam. 

The third great truth is consequent upon 
the second — the involving of all men in the 
results of Adam's fall. If there were men in 
the world who could trace their ancestry to 
some one else than Adam they might claim 
that they did not have inbred sin. But the 
Bible statements are absolutely consistent in 
this history. 

The fourth great truth is the promise of the 
Redeemer to come as a member of the same 
human family of Adam. 

Just remember these four teachings of the 
Scriptures. Every one of them is a revela- 
tion from God which we can know only by 
believing what He says about it. The Bible 
does not attempt to prove that these things 
are so; it simply reveals the fact that they 
are so. Whenever you hear a sermon that 
denies any of these four teachings, bear in 
mind that it is not an orthodox sermon. To 
be sure, people who are not orthodox will 
not usually radically deny them when they 
are trying to deceive you. They prefer in- 
stead to say something to lead you away 
from these truths. Well, take what they say 



22 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

and see if it stands on these four great prin- 
ciples. If it does not there is something the 
matter with that sermon. The preacher who 
says something that will not fit in with God's 
Creatorship, the descent of all men from 
Adam, the involving of all men in the results 
of the fall, and the promise of the Redeemer, 
is a man to avoid as a leader, no matter how 
nicely he may do it, for he is intending to 
take you away from the foundation. 
Four Fundamental Errors Refuted 

I notice also that these three chapters of 
Genesis refute four popular modern errors. 

First, Unitarianism. It has already been 
shown that the very name of God in the orig- 
inal, Elohim, used thirty-five times in the 
first thirty-four verses, is plural; and the 
pronoun "us" shows that the God of the Bi- 
ble is not after the Unitarian conception. 
The object of the Unitarian error is to rob 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, of His Deity. 
The Holy Ghost foresaw this attempt and in- 
spired Moses to write these chapters in such 
a way that the error would be refuted in ad- 
vance. 

The next popular teaching we will mention 
as being refuted by these chapters is Pan- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 23 

theism. That, as the derivation of the word 
plainly shows, is simply the belief that God 
is everywhere, God is in everything, and 
everything is God. It confuses God and. 
nature. There are people who say they see 
God in the stars, in the grass, in the flowers,, 
and claim to have something of God in them- 
selves, but they are strangers to the true 
God. The God of the Bible is prior to the 
stars and flowers, prior to the zephyrs and 
summer breezes. He has something to do 
with them all, but He existed before any of 
these things did; so He cannot be them, and 
they cannot be Him. The way this error is 
now generally propagated is under the term, 
"the divine immanence." Now, there is a 
truth about God being everywhere that is 
Scriptural, but it is not true to the extent 
that God is in everybody, converted or un- 
converted. If He were He would send part 
of Himself to hell when He sent sinners 
there. You will see that the pantheist is nec- 
essarily a no-hellite. 

In a funeral sermon preached by a Hicks- 
ite (Unitarian) preacher the statement was 
made of the young man who had been killed 
that, because he believed in the divine imma- 



24 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

nence, therefore lie was saved, because he 
could not go where God was not. That is all 
the foundation some people have for their 
comfort regarding eternity. There are some 
places where God is not in the w^ay in which 
He is in other places, and we need to guard 
ourselves a little on the expression, "God is 
everywhere." God is not everywhere like a 
great volume of gas, impregnating every- 
where. God is not everywhere like the at- 
mosphere. God is a Spirit, and the sense in 
which God is everywhere is more Scriptural- 
ly suggested by the thought that God is able 
at any instant to manifest Himself anywhere 
in His universe, rather than a great gaseous 
presence that is everywhere alike all the 
time. There is a place in the universe that 
God is in a way that He is nowhere else. 
There is a place where Jesus is today bodily, 
and He is nowhere else in that way. As 
Christians we may speak of His being in our 
hearts, but that is as the Spirit manifests His 
presence there and takes of the things of 
Christ and shows them to us. He is at the 
right hand of God the Father in the body, 
and He is not here in that way, and He has 
not been since New Testament times. He 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 25 

will be here again some day, when He comes 
again, but He is not here now in that way. 

Another modern error exploded by the 
statements of these first chapters is Chris- 
tian Science. The first chapter of Genesis 
refutes one of the fundamental teachings of 
that misnamed error. I had mv first battle 
with Christian Science almost without know- 
ing it and won by being fortified with the 
first chapter of Genesis. A woman approach- 
ed me and, after talking religiously, asked, 
"Did you ever study Christian Science?" I 
told her I never had. She said, "Christian 
Science teaches that matter is evil and mind 
is good, and that mind triumphs over mat- 
ter." I responded, "Does the Bible mean 
mind or matter when it says in Genesis, 
'And God saw all that He had made, and, 
behold, it was very good!" There was no 
further argument. I then learned one great 
lesson, not to study systems of error to meet 
them, but to be familiar with the Bible, and 
the Holy Ghost will bring to remembrance 
what you need to meet the error. 

But there is another popular error that is 
exploded by the Bible. We have heard much 
about evolution: that life has moved upward 



26 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

from lower vegetable forms to higher ones, 
until it became semi-animal, and finally an- 
imal; then from lower animal forms it evolv- 
ed the higher animal forms, and, eventually, 
man. In this first chapter of Genesis it is 
stated ten times, of the different kinds of 
plants and animals, that they brought forth 
after their kind. That is, if you plant wheat 
you get wheat, and you will keep on get- 
ting wheat as long as you plant wheat; it 
brings forth after its kind on and on indefi- 
nitely. Where would evolution make any 
progress if it is true that everything brings 
forth after its kind'? 

But the thing that shows us the error of 
evolution most crushingiy is the experience 
Adam had in hunting a wife. He found him- 
self alone in the garden; and, though he had 
a propensity for a companion, he found no 
companionable creature about him. "The 
Lord God said, It is not good that the man 
should be alone; I will make an help meet 
for him." As a preliminary to relieving 
Adam's loneliness we read, "Out of the 
ground the Lord God formed every beast of 
the field, and every fowl of the air, and 
brought them unto Adam to see what he 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 27 

would call them, and whatsoever Adam 
called every living creature, that was the 
name thereof." Let the evolutioists say what 
they please about Adam being just out 
of apedom. the indications are that Adam 
was a smart man. He excelled all the mod- 
ern scientists in his ability to invent names 
without going into the Latin language : ' ' And 
Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the 
fowl of the air, and to every beast of the 
field." But the quest for a companion for 
Adam among all earth's creatures is conclud- 
ed in these words: "but for Adam there was 
not found an helpmeet for him." 

Now if it is true, as evolutionists explain, 
that the gradation of improvement is so small 
that it takes centuries to see any advance 
from species to species, how does it come 
that Adam was so far in advance of all other 
creatures? Surely, if evolution is true, there 
would have been a suitable mate for Adam 
as there had been for his ancestors all the 
generations before — if he had had ancestors. 
But when Adam had looked over all the 
creatures there was not one at all like him. 
So God had to do an additional creative act* 

The infidels and higher critics do not make 



28 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

much fuss about God creating Adam out of 
the dust, but they make a great howl about 
his making the woman out of one of Adam's 
ribs. Why is the creation of Eve made a 
point of attack instead of the creation of 
Adam? Surely not altogether because of the 
miraculous, though that is one reason, 
because to make a man out of dust would 
be as miraculous as making a woman out of 
a rib. T have noticed that the devil seems 
to know the things in the Old Testament 
that speaks beforetime of Jesus Christ, and 
he invariably attacks these points. That is 
why Jonah is so attacked by these agents of 
Satan. Jonah, in his experience with the 
fish, and his final rescue, is a type, a picture, 
which Jesus Himself refers to, of Christ's 
death and resurrection; and the devil is de- 
termined he will destroy that picture or ter- 
ribly mar it. 

Well, in the creation of Eve there is an- 
other picture of Jesus Christ. Adam was put 
to sleep in a garden, his side opened and 
from the wound came Eve, Adam's bride. 
I see faintly pictured here something which 
casts light on another scene four thousand 
vears later. There was the second Adam in 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 29 

the sleep of death in a garden, and He had 
a wound in His side, and from the wound of 
the second Adam was shed the blood that is 
the purchase price of the Bride for Him. 



CHAPTER II. 

LUCIFER FIRST PROVINCIAL 
GOVERNOR 

This lecture must necessarily overlap the 
previous one a little. When God created the 
universe, as stated in the first verse of Gen- 
esis, He, of course, assumed the government 
of the whole realm. In a general way we 
may call this universe the Kingdom of God, 
without denying the more restricted, spirit- 
ual use of that term. 

The earth is a province of this Kingdom 
of God. If we will bear this in mind it will 
help us understand some statements of 
Scripture that are otherwise hardly compre- 
hensible. We know that "the earth is the 
Lord's and the fulness thereof" (1 Cor. 10:- 
26) ; and yet the Scripture indicates that 
Satan has something to do with the rule of it, 
for it calls him the " prince of this world" 
(John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). God is King over 
the whole realm, and the earth is a province 
of that realm which is ruled by provincial 
governors, the first of whom, we learn from 
Scripture, was Lucifer. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 31 

Earth's Earliest Inhabitants 

In the previous lecture something was 
said about a primeval disaster that wrecked 
the world between the first and second verses 
of Genesis. We will now seek the possible 
cause of that disaster. 

The inference is strong that there were 
some kind of inhabitants on the earth prior 
to Adam. We infer this from Genesis 1:28: 
"God blessed them, and God said unto them, 
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the 
earth." Notice the word "replenish" is used 
rather than "fill." Comparison of this with 
Genesis 9:1 is helpful. This is spoken to Noah 
after the flood: "God blessed Noah and his 
sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful and 
multiply and replenish the earth," the iden- 
tical words spoken to Adam and Eve. We 
know that in Noah's case this replenishing 
plainly meant to fill again, which is the gram- 
matical sense of the word, and since God's 
instruction to Adam has the same construc- 
tion, the inference is almost positive that the 
earth had a population of some kind previous 
to Adam. Adam, therefore, is told to replen- 
ish the depopulated earth. 

There are some references that modify 



32 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

this inference. It is well to guard this point 
cautiously with the statement that the pop- 
ulation of the earth previous to Adam, what- 
ever they may have been called, whatever 
the name of the species may have been, they 
were not made in the image of God. The 
statement of God, when the Holy Trinity was 
conferring in regard to creating man, "Let 
us make man in our image/' suggests the be- 
gining of an entirely new thing in the world. 
We have shown that the word "created" gen- 
erally, if not always, means to bring forth 
out of nothing; and, in this re-shaping of the 
earth preparatory to its repopulating under 
Adam, Ave find the word "made" generally 
used, but the word " created" is used in re- 
gard to things that did not exist in that pri- 
meval creation. Where the word "created" 
is used in the description of this reconstruc- 
tion it evidently refers to things brought into 
existence peculiar to this renewed earth that 
had no previous existence in the primeval 
earth. So we find the creation of Adam, "in 
the image of God," is one of the new things 
of this new order. Then, again, as evidence 
that Adam was the first of a new race, we 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 33 

find in I Corinthians 15 : 45 the statement that 
Adam was the first man. 

What or who were the inhabitants of that 
primeval earth? It is evident that, though 
they w T ere not men, they were intelligent, 
responsible creatures of God, capable of 
sinning and therefore knowing good and 
evil. Let us search the Scriptures to see if 
we can find any reference to that earlier pop- 
ulation. It is plain from several state- 
ments of Scripture that some one had sinned 
before Adam did. The second chapter of II 
Peter, beginning with the fourth verse gives 
a series of three great w r orld calamities in 
the order in which they occurred: "For if God 
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast 
them down to hell, and delivered them into 
chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judg- 
ment; and spared not the old world, but sav- 
ed Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of 
righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the 
world of the ungodly; and turning the cities 
of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemn- 
ed them with an overthrow, making them an 
example unto those that after should live un- 
godly." etc. These three disasters are: 1. 
The fall of the angels: 2. The overthrow of 



34 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

the ante-diluvian world; 3. The overthrow of 
Sodom and neighboring cities. There is also 
reference to this primeval disaster in the 
sixth verse of Jude: "The angels which kept 
not their first estate, but left their own habi- 
tation, He hath reserved in everlasting 
chains under darkness unto the judgment of 
the great day." 

There is also a suggestive statement in He- 
brews 2:5. "For unto the angels hath He not 
put in subjection the world to come, whereof 
we speak." Now, if God has not put in sub- 
jection to angels the world to come, the infer- 
ence *& strong that there was a world that 
was subject to angels. 

f Cause of Primeval Disaster 

This disaster, for which room is allowed 
between verses one and two of the first chap- 
ter of Genesis, must have had a cause. We 
know that the cause of the second calamity 
in Peter's series of three, the flood, was 
caused by man's sin, after which Noah was 
commanded to increase and multiply and re- 
plenish the earth. Since that universal world 
disaster came from sin, it is easy to infer 
that this primeval disaster must have been 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 35 

a result of sin somewhere. Then the ques- 
tion is, whose sin? The angels have sinned. 
This sin of the angels is not something hap- 
pening since Adamsinned, but must have 
been since the beginning mentioned in the 
first verse of Genesis. There was no sin when 
God created the heaven and the earth. Since 
the first sin must have been after that, and 
the second verse of Genesis shows the disas- 
ter consequent on sin has taken place, there- 
fore this must have occurred between the 
first and second verses of the first chapter 
of Genesis, resulting in the cataclysmic over- 
throw that left things in the chaotic condi- 
tion the second verse describes. 

The title of this lecture infers that the 
name of the ruler of that primeval earth was 
Lucifer, provincial govenor of the earth un 
der God's appointment. But we will investi- 
gate the Scripturalness of this inference. 

The name Lucifer occurs but once in the 
Bible, and that is in the fourteenth chapter 
of Isaiah. That chapter, beginning with 
verse four, is a description in proverb of the 
king of Babylon, as indicated by the intro- 
duction of the subject, addressed to Israel, in 
verse three: "It shall come to pass in the 



36 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

day that the Lord shall give thee rest from 
thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the 
hard bondage wherein thou wast made to 
serve, that thou shalt take up this proverb 
against the king of Babylon." This word 
"proverb" has the same meaning as "para- 
ble," and is so translated a number of times, 
(See Num. 23:7, etc.), and the words that fol- 
low describe the king of Babylon as a para- 
ble, or illustration, of some other ruler, be- 
cause the description could not possibly ap- 
ply, in its entirety, to the king of Babylon. 

The parable begins with a description of 
what might have been possible of the king 
of Babylon, describing how he "smote the 
people in wrath," "ruled the nations in 
anger," and like expressions, and then states 
things that could have been possible only of 
a greater king than he. The description that 
follows tells of what the king of Babylon had 
done in the way of devastating the earth and 
carrying away different peoples, bringing 
them into bondage, and then the parable lifts 
from the lesser type to the greater anti-type ; 
the king of Babylon fades into the picture of 
Lucifer who is named in verse 12: "How art 
thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 37 

the morning! how art thou cut down to the 
ground, which didst weaken the nations! For 
thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend 
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the 
stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount 
of the congregation, in the side of the north : 
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; 
I will be like the Most High." 

Lucifer had a throne according to this de- 
scription, and was therefore a king, and, if 
a king, must have had a kingdom. We can 
find no place for such a king or kingdom in 
history. The logical place for both is after 
creation and before Adam. Therefore be- 
tween verses one and two of Genesis we must 
place Lucifer and his kingdom. 

Another description of this same king is 
found in the 28th chapter of Ezekiel. Here we 
find much the same language and construc- 
tion as in the 14th of Isaiah. First this is a 
description of the " prince of Tyre," or Ty- 
rus, that applies, at least in part, to the ruler 
of that ancient city. But in verse 12 the 
same movement from type to anti-type takes 
place; "Son of man, take up a lamentation 
upon the king of Tyrus." This word " lamen- 
tation" also has the sense of the word para- 



38 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

ble, so Ezekiel is here taking up a parable on 
the king of Tyrus. Beginning with a de- 
scription of what might possibly be the king 
of Tyrus, he leaps out of the ordinary, into 
the extraordinary, and describes what cannot 
possibly be a description, even in hyperbole, 
of the earthly king of Tyrus. 

Let us read a little further: k 'Thus saith 
the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full 
of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast 
been in Eden the garden of God; every pre- 
cious stone was thy covering Thou art 

the anointed cherub that covereth; and I 
have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy 
mountain of God: thou hast walked up and 
down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou 
wast perfect in thy ways from the day that 
thou wast created, till iniquity was found in 
thee." 

This parabolic description of the king of 
Tyrus evidently referred to some one of 
whom earthly kings are only small copies. 
Somewhere there is a great pattern from 
which all wicked kings have drawn their in- 
spiration. The king of Babylon drew his in- 
spiration from some one that lived back there 
in the primeval creation; the king of Tyre 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 39 

with his wickedness, got his model back there 
somewhere. 

The position of this great ruler in that pri- 
meval creation is indicated by the fact of his 
having a throne, as stated in the passage 
quoted from Isaiah. Then he is called "day 
star" in the margin of Isaiah 14:12, indicat- 
ing a sort of superior place among the stars. 
"Stars" here evidently refer to angelic 
creatures. Job 38:7 speaks of stars in a way 
that could hardly refer to stellar bodies: 
"When the morning stars sang together, and 
all the sons of God shouted for joy." These 
"morning stars" appear to have been intel- 
ligent creatures, not mere stellar bodies, and 
the application of the term "day star" to 
Lucifer indicates superior intelligence. We 
find a side thought in Revelation 12:4, deal- 
ing with the subject of the great red dragon, 
who, if I mistake not, is the same person we 
are dealing with here, in a later stage of his 
history, still future. Here we are introduced 
to something still future, to be sure, but at 
the same time it had its beginning in the 
past. It says of the dragon, "His tail drew 
the third part of the stars of heaven," from 
which it has been inferred that the declen- 



40 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

sion of Lucifer resulted in the fall of a third 
part of the angels of heaven, symbolized here 
under the term "stars." Since Lucifer did 
bring down in his trail many angels, and we 
know not where else these angels that sinned 
may have come from, it is likely that this re- 
fers to the very thing that we are studying. 

The Origin of Sin 

We need to study now the manner of Lu- 
cifer's declension; in other words how Luci- 
fer became the devil. Some people are dis- 
posed to blame God for the presence of sin 
in the universe and in the world, assuming 
that God created it ; but that class of people 
are also disposed to believe that God created 
the devil a devil to start with, with wicked 
propensities from the beginning. 

By way of illustration let us study the 
manner of Adam's and Eve's entrance into 
sin, though we must anticipate a future 
lecture to do so. We see that in their case 
sin resulted from misappropriation of good 
things. A good man and a good woman and 
some good fruit, for God had pronounced 
them all good, got together in a wrong w r ay 
and it produced sin. No one can say that 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 41 

God created that sin in the case of Adam and 
Eve. The fruit did not produce sin, but 
their disobedience of God's commandment. 
There was, to be sure, in that case, an agent 
that had sin in him, for the fallen Lucifer 
was using the serpent as the agent of his 
dealing with Adam and Eve to lead them in- 
to sin. In going back to the origin of sin in 
the universe we get a step further into diffi- 
culty, because there was not then, as in 
Adam's case, a sinful agent conniving and 
working things around to bring about a con- 
dition that would produce transgression. 
How was Lucifer, the day star, induced to 
commit sin without any agent to help the 
case along? We cannot go any further than 
the Bible in the investigation, and we are not 
going to try to. 

There is a passage in I Timothy 3 : 6 that 
may help us. It gives instruction about 
what kind of a man will make a good bishop, 
and one of the warnings Paul gives Timothy 
about appointing bishops is, "Not a novice, 
lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the 
condemnation of the devil." I have a sug- 
gestion, that is not altogether original with 
me, that the meaning of this passage is that 



42 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

a novice, that is a man who has recently come 
to the Christan faith, should not be given the 
office of bishop, lest he get puffed up with his 
new honors and fall into the same condemna- 
tion that the devil did when he fell. Ezekiel 
28:15 relates the manner of his fall: "Thou 
wast perfect in thy ways from the day that 
thou wast created, till iniqutiy was found in 
thee." So this person, set forth under the 
figure of the king of Tyre, was created per- 
fect. The Lord therefore is not to blame 
for that individual having sinned after a 
while, for he was created all right. Then 
there is a further description in verse 17: 
" Thine heart was lifted up because of thy 
beauty." 

That novice Paul mentions was not to be 
appointed bishop lest he get proud. Lucifer 
became proud and fell. How any body could 
get proud without some sin for it to come out 
of, I do not know, and I am not going to try 
to explain. I am merely giving Scripture 
that this individual was perfect when he was 
created, that he got puffed up and proud 
over his beauty and fell, and that is as far 
back as the Scriptures take us, and is enough 
for me. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 43 

Putting together the account in Isaiah 
fourteen and the one in Ezekiel twenty-eight, 
we see how sin originated and its results. 
Being puffed up with pride of his beauty, Lu- 
cifer began to look for a more exalted posi- 
tion in God's realm. Being appointed a chief 
prince over one of the provinces of God's 
universe, it was easy for him to begin to look 
toward greater elevation. It has been sug- 
gested that it is generally someone high up 
in a kingdom that attempts to usurp the king- 
dom. As the thought grew on Lucifer he 
said, "I will exalt my throne above the stars 
of God." This day star was planning to be 
promoted over other stars. The thing grows 
on him until he aims at the very throne of 
God and says, "I will be like the Most 
High." An attempt to usurp the very throne 
of heaven, dethrone God and rule the uni- 
verse seems to have possessed this exalted, 
proud, ambitious Lucifer at this time. 

It is a good deal like the method he used 
on Adam, if you have noticed it. It worked 
so well with himself that, when Adam came 
on the scene Satan set about to trip him up 
using identically the same thing that had 
tripped himself. He told Eve that if thev 



44 WORLD GOVERNMENT . . 

would eat the fruit they would be like Gou. 
It worked so well with Lucifer that Lucifer 
thought it would work with Adam and Eve — 
and it did. 

It is interesting to notice in this connec- 
tion that this same dominating spirit is man- 
ifest in the Anti-christ, yet to be, described 
in the second chapter of II Thessalonians: 
"That man of sin be revealed, the son of per- 
dition; who opposeth and exalteth himself 
above all that is called God, or that is wor- 
shipped; so that he as God sitteth in the tem- 
ple of God, showing himself that he is God. ' ' 
The last manifestation of sin is like the first 
Here we see the very essence of sin. These 
grovelling forms of sin we see about us are 
products of sin, but the essence of sin is the 
innate desire to become like God — the es- 
sence of LTnitarianism today — salvation by 
morality. The sin of wanting to be like God 
by cultivation of inherited qualities domi- 
nates the hearts of men of every clime; it 
has permeated human nature from the orig- 
inal Adamic sin that had its origin back in 
the sin of Lucifer. Lucifer did not seek pro- 
motion by going to God and getting 
a higher appointment. That would have 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 45 

been the legitimate way. If he thought he 
was worthy of a higher position, he should 
have gone to God and asked for it, and then 
have gladly abided by God's decision. But he 
thought that by schemes of his own he was 
going to get up. And so Adam and 
Eve, by using the means within their 
reach, were going to get up. The same 
thing is woven all through the human 
family today; wherever you find peo- 
ple with any desire at all to be nice folks, 
they desire to cultivate some inherited qual- 
ity until they are "just as good as Christians 
are." It may seem that some of these sub- 
jects are far removed from our theme, but 
we are getting back into the realm that lies 
back of what is manifested in the open. 
The seed of sin that has been scattered from 
generation to generation, through angels and 
men, to this present day, is identically the 
same as that first sinful act of Lucifer, get- 
ting up by his own contrivances. 

It is probable, or perhaps rather, not im- 
probable, that fallen Lucifer solicited all the 
creatures of God to go along with him in this 
rebellion. It is not unlikely that he solicited 
the other archangels to rebel w T ith him: it 



46 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

is quite possible that he tried to induce the 
common angels to go along with him, and it 
seems likely from the passage quoted from 
Revelation that one-third of the common 
angels yielded to his solicitation and fell with 
him. 

Here it may be well to notice a difference 
between the manner in which sin spreads 
among angels and among men. It is evident 
that the angels did not spring from a federal 
head, as did the human race, but that every 
angel is a distinct creation of God, and indi- 
vidually responsible to him in matters of con- 
duct, and that therefore the only way sin 
could spread in heaven was influentially and 
not by inheritance. Lucifer had no sons so 
far as we know, neither was he the son of 
any other. 

If the angel family were constituted like 
the human family, for the federal head of the 
angels to have sinned would have involved 
all the rest in the consequences. Just as 
Adam the head of the human family by his 
sin brought sin on the whole human race. But 
Lucifer is not federal head or progenitor of 
the angels, so his sin could spread only by 
influence from one to another, Lucifer influ- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 47 

encing those next to him, and they influenc- 
ing others until they had inaugurated a great 
revolt involving a third part of the angels, 
set up their headquarters on this planet and 
started their plans to put God out of the rul- 
ership of the universe. But their misman- 
aged rebel government soon went to naught. 
The old earth went to crash, ruin and devas- 
tation, out of which, in due time, God rescued 
it and rebuilt it as a place in which to start 
the family of Adam. 

Comparison of Angels and Men 

In this connection it might be we?l for us 
to consider the irretrie^ableness of the sin of 
the angels, the unforgivable quality of their 
sin, their inability to be redeemed from their 
fall. We are sometimes told that God loves 
men and has provided atonement for them. 
But it is evident that something more than 
love is involved in the offer of salvation to 
men on the simple terms of the Gospel. 
While the Bible does not say, in that many 
words, that God loves the angels, I am dis- 
posed to think that He does, and that it was 
a grief to Him when so many of His beauti- 
ful creatures were swept away in the dec] en- 



48 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

sion of Lucifer. The reason God lias provid- 
ed a Redeemer for sinful men and not for 
sinful angels cannot be accounted for entire- 
ly on the ground of His superior love for the 
one over the other, but that, if we may use 
the term in that connection, the difficulty is 
scientific- 
One deep look into the plans and purposes 
of God will forever refute the fallacy of sal- 
vation by imitation, by character or by love 
of God. As suggested, there is no reason to 
believe that a superior love of God for fallen 
men over fallen angels prompted the provis- 
ion of a way of salvation for man and not for 
angels. There was a deep-laid design of God 
when the Holy Trinity met in counsel and 
said, "Let us make man in our image." There 
was far-seeing design, a plan for the restora- 
tion of the earth-province back into the 
hands of God on the basis of willing obedi- 
ence of His creatures rather than by force. 
God could have exerted force, swept the 
devil and his angels immediately into the 
lake of fire, restored the earth to its beauty 
and re-peopled it with sinless subjects in a 
day, if He wanted to, for anything I know, 
but He has not designed to do so. Instead 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 49 

He has designed that this province called 
earth shall be restored back into the king- 
dom on the basis of the willing obedience of 
its inhabitants to God's rule; and the first 
step toward that end is this creation of man 
in the image of God. 

What was the difficulty about the restora- 
tion of these angels'? We may say that they 
sinned against such great light that it would 
be impossible to forgive such sin. That may 
have its bearing on the case, but I find anoth- 
er reason suggested in Hebrews 2 : 16, which 
says of Jesus, "For verily He took not on 
Him the nature of angels; but He took on 
Him the seed of Abraham." That verse gives 
the limitation and extent of the atonement. 
The reason God has not provided a means of 
salvation through faith for angels is because 
their nature is such that there is no way for 
God to get down into it and work out a sys- 
tem of atonement. The universe is based on 
law. With all our talk about the grace of 
God, and it is marvelous, we must realize 
that there are laws that govern God's pro- 
vision for grace. This universe is run by 
law, and must be kept going by law, and the 
breakers of laws must be punished. There 



50 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

is a phrase in Numbers 35:33 that says, "The 
land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is 
shed therein, but by the blood of him that 
shed it. ' ? So sin of any kind cannot be right- 
ed in God's sight, except by the punishment 
of the sinner. That is the basic law of the 
moral universe, and we must not lose sight 
of that fact. Forgiveness exercised by God 
must be based on some procuring cause that 
over against the crime places an adequate 
penalty. We are admonished to forgive one 
another, and we are bound to do so, but we 
cannot justify one another without the sin 
being made right. A man might steal a dol- 
lar from me, and, under condemnation about 
it, come back to me and say, "I stole that 
dollar that you missed the other day, and I 
would like to have you forgive me for it." I 
can, and should, freely forgive him, but I 
cannot justify him until he brings that dol- 
lar back or gets somebody else to bring it 
back for him. By displacing that dollar he 
has by so much thrown the moral universe 
out of balance, and, until that dollar is put 
back into its place, the moral universe can be 
sustained in proper balance only by the pen- 
alty resting upon the transgressor. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 51 

The sin of the angels threw the moral uni- 
verse out of balance, and the only possible 
way that it can be maintained in balance is 
by the punishment of these sinful angels. 
God has prepared everlasting fire for these 
angels; that will balance up the universe and 
maintain God's law. But He is offering for- 
giveness to us. How is it possible that He can 
say to us that, if we will confess and believe 
on Jesus, He will give us everlasting life? 
On what basis does He do it? If He does it 
for us, why does not He do it for the angels ? 
The answer is in the fact that man is made 
in the image of God while angels are not, 
and that Jesus took not on Him the nature 
of angels but the seed of Abraham. 

I cannot describe all that image consists 
of, but, whatever that image is, it 
is the image of God. Therefore it is 
possible for God to become man and not cease 
to be God, while He could not become an 
angel and continue to be God. God's ap- 
pearance in the form of an angel several 
times in the Old Testament was not of the 
same character as the Word being made 
flesh. Careful study of these passages will 
bring out this fact; that these angels were 



52 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

manifestations of God and not embodiments 
of God Himself. God also manifested Him- 
self in fire and wind in the Old Testament, 
as well as in angels, but He did not become 
fire and wind. That He did not take on Him- 
self the nature of angels we are distinctly 
told: " verily He took not on Him the nature 
of angels. " Nowhere do we read that an angel 
is made in the image of God. The very plain 
inference is that when God said, "Let us 
make man in our own image," He was doing 
something that had never before been done 
in bringing into existence a creature that had 
His image. 

Should the Holy Trinity undertake the 
problem of angelic salvation, after the man- 
ner in which He has undertaken human sal- 
vation, there is only one w r ay that it could 
be done: some member of the Trinity, with 
infinite capacity, would have to take on Him- 
self the nature of angels, do the angels' work 
and take the angels' penalty, to provide sal- 
vation for the angels. But this He could not 
do. The great Deity could not confine Him- 
self to the narrow limits of angel nature. An 
angel does not have the capacity to receive 
Him in all His fulness; but human nature, as 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 53 

originally conceived in the mind of God, has 
this capacity, so that the second Person of 
the Trinity can take upon Himself man's 
nature, do man's work, suffer man's penal- 
ty and not cease to be God any of the time. 
Therefore one reason why no provision has 
been made for the salvation of angels is this 
insurmountable scientific difficulty of provid- 
ing a Divine substitute who can be made in 
ail things like unto those to whom He would 
become brethren. There may be legal bar- 
riers also — I think there are — but this scien- 
tific barrier explains much. 

But when it came to providing salvation 
for mankind the eternal Word stepped upon 
the scene and consented to be a man. In do- 
ing this He took upon Himself the human 
image, which was His own after all, the one 
in which it was natural for Him to manifest 
Himself in the realm of the material. He did 
not confine Himself to the north, south, east 
or west when He became man; He was as 
much God as He ever had been; and, also, 
man's nature was complete in Him. Jesus 
was not a sort of half God and half man, but 
He was all God and all man. That is, all 
there is of human nature is in Him, and all 



54 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

there is of Deity nature is in Him. He is the 
only Person in all the universe in Whom these 
natures are thus peculiarly combined. Jesus 
is not a half-breed. When Jesus was "made 
of a woman, made under the law," (Gal. 4:4), 
He was not produced by natural processes. 
The unique combination of the two natures 
was not produced by cohabitation but by a 
distinct creative act of God in the coming 
upon Mary of the Holy Ghost. 

Now that we have seen how that Jesus was 
made our Savior, it is well for us to consider 
how the plan of substitutionary atonement 
works out in practice. There were two sins 
that Adam committed in the garden. One 
w T as a negative sin and the other a positive 
sin. God gave Adam two commandments; 
the positive command to dress and keep the 
garden, and the negative command not to eat 
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
So Adam, in order to stay right in the sight 
of God, had to conduct himself along the line 
of attending to his appointed work and leav- 
ing that tree alone. When he ate of the fruit 
of the tree, he incurred the penalty of the 
negative commandment, and incapacitated 
himself for the performance of the positive 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 55 

commandment. Adam was not thereafter 
able to do anything pleasing to God as long 
as he was under the penalty for sin; neither 
is anybody, no matter how important a po- 
sition they hold in the church, how many 
tons of coal they may give to the poor, or 
how many ragged children they may clothe 
and feed. If they are not children of God 
they cannot do anything pleasing to God. 

Adam owed God his service from day to 
day. After his fall he went in debt to God 
a day's work every day he lived, beside be- 
ing under the penalty for his sin in eating 
the forbidden fruit; and every day his sons 
lived a day's work accrued to each of them, 
and every day that you and I live out of 
Christ has put us a day in debt, until the ex- 
chequer of God is impoverished for human 
labor. When Jesus came on the scene He 
had two things to do in order to save men: 
He had to make up to God what he had lost 
through man's failure of 'service, and then 
take the penalty for man's sin. The former 
He did by His perfect life, the latter by His 
sacrificial death. He could perform man's 
work and do it aright, because He was 
a perfect man, and, since He was God, He 



56 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

had infinite capacity to work out the debt of 
service Godward for all mankind. Circum- 
cised the eighth day, He forever lifted the 
necessity of that ordinance from those who 
take His righteousness by faith as their 
righteousness. He thus filled the require- 
ment of every commandment until He finish- 
ed His life work and laid down His life a sac- 
rifice on the cross. His life of service made 
up to God all that God had lost in man's fall; 
so that if not a soul were saved, heaven 
would not be the poorer. God has in Jesus 
'Christ retrieved His loss in man. 

Then, having made amends for man's fail- 
ure, He died on the cross; He took Adam's 
penalty and the penalty of all the rest of the 
human family, your penalty and my penalty, 
so that it is possible for every individual in 
the world to be saved by the simple act of 
appropriating faith that lifts him out of debt 
to God and cancels the penalty of hell; and 
every soul that is saved and goes to heaven 
makes heaven that much richer than it would 
have been if Jesus had not come and died. 
God is overthrowing the works of the devil 
double. Jesus has made up all the debt in- 
curred by the fall, and then is going to make 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 57 

a big profit out of the investment of His 
blood. It blesses my soul to think about it. 

The forgiveness one receives by accepting 
Jesus as Savior is of the character of justifi- 
cation. It fixes him and his record as though 
he had not sinned, and he cannot add to it by 
any good deed that he can do. There are peo- 
ple wanting to do something to merit salva- 
tion, but cannot do it. Suppose some person 
wanted to give you a present, and the pres- 
ent is so overwhelming, so good, that you 
feel you want to do something in return, and 
you go down in your pocket and pull out an 
old copper cent with a hole in it and hand to 
him. What would he think of you and your 
money? That is a faint illustration of our 
human righteousness offered Him. 

Paul said he was raised according to the 
law blameless, but he added, "What things 
were gain to me, those I counted loss for 
Christ." That is, if he had been good enough 
to have saved himself by righteous deeds, he 
would have been lost to Jesus. So Paul 
threw all his own righteousness overboard 
and let Jesus have all the glory, that 
there might be a mutual profit. Every moral 
man who thinks his morality has been so 



58 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

good as to save him, or partly save him, is 
losing that much in Christ, and Christ is 
losing that much in him, if such a combina- 
tion were possible. So let us throw all our 
self-righteous deeds out as filthy rags, and 
let Jesus have the whole profit, for we will 
never merit heaven nor obtain it by right- 
eousness that we have done; then, serving 
Him in righteousness and true holiness, we 
can set forth Christ's righteousness before 
men by holy living and faithful testimony. 



CHAPTER in 

ADAM SECOND PROVINCIAL 
GOVERNOR 

This subject logically follows the two pre- 
vious lectures. We have assumed that the 
earth is a province of God's kingdom, that 
Lucifer was appointed first provincial gov- 
ernor, that through pride he fell, his govern- 
ment of the earth became misrule, and, as a 
consequence, the earth was wrecked; that 
God then restored the earth, the final restor- 
ative acts being described in the six days of 
Genesis. Having restored the earth, He pro- 
vided another governor in the person of 
Adam, created in the image and likeness of 
God, and it is the career of this second pro- 
vincial governor of the earth that we are 
now to study. 

The Second Governor's Person 

We find the new governor's person describ- 
ed in Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in 
His own image, in the image of God created 



60 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

He him." The person of the second governor 
was superior to the person of the first gov- 
ernor. However much more marvelous and 
wonderful Lucifer may have been in his orig- 
inal state than Adam in his original state, 
nevertheless Adam was superior in personal- 
ity and possibilities to the original Lucifer. 
We do not so much know of what the image 
of God in the original Adam consisted as we 
know what is restored in Christ, the second 
Adam, for that image is not particularly de- 
scribed in Genesis. But what Jesus is going 
to restore is to some extent described in 
other Scriptures. We learn from II Corin- 
thians 4:4 that Christ is the image of God; so 
that we understand that in Jesus Christ is 
restored the image man lost in Adam's fall. 
Men are not now naturally in the image of 
God, nor do they have power to impart it to 
their offspring. Adam lost the image, and 
then he begat a son in his own image and 
likeness, (Gen. 5:3), and not in the image 
and likeness of God. But Jesus had the 
image and likeness of God. It is mentioned 
again in II Corinthians 3:18, "We all, with 
open face beholding as in a glass the glory 
of the Lord, are changed into the same im- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 61 

age from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit 
of the Lord." So there is that about the sac- 
rifice of Jesus and the consequent renewing 
operation of the Holy Ghost that brings be- 
lieving men back into the image of God. 
Ephesians 4:24 says, "That ye put on the 
new man, who after God is created in right- 
eousness and true holiness." At least two of 
the characteristics of the image of God, then, 
are righteousness and true holiness. Colos- 
sians 3:10 says, "And have put on the new 
man, which is renewed in knowledge after 
the image of Him that created him." So we 
have these three terms, " knowledge," 
"righteousness" and "true holiness," as 
descriptions of that image. However, I am 
disposed to think that the image of God is 
not confined altogether to spiritual and 
mental attributes, but that the Yevy physi- 
cal form of Adam is included in the state- 
ment that he was created in the image and 
likeness of God, It is beyond our com- 
prehension to follow that idea to its conclu- 
sion. We can only state it and continue to 
study. Adam certainly had a magnificent 
personality. 



62 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

The Second Governor's Position 

We need next to consider the position of 
the second provincial governor. This is de- 
scribed in the Bible in two distinct ways, 
ideally and temporarily. The ideal position 
of Adam is briefly described in Psalm 8: 6-8, 
"Thou madest him to have dominion over 
the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all 
things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, 
yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of 
the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatso- 
ever passeth through the paths of the seas." 
This is repeated in similar words in Hebrews 
2:8, "Thou hast put all things in subjection 
under his feet. For in that He put all in sub- 
jection under him, He left nothing that is 
not put under him." 

But this ideal position was not immediate- 
ly entered upon by Adam. He was tempora- 
rily put in a lower position as indicated by 
other Scripture. Psalm 8:5 says, "Thou hast 
made him a little lower than the angels." 
Likewise in Hebrews 2:7 we read, "Thou 
madest him a little lower than the angels." 

In this connection it is helpful to read the 
8th and 9th verses of the same chapter: 
"Thou hast put all things in subjection un- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 63 

der his feet. For in that He put all in sub- 
jection under Him, He left nothing that is 
not put under Him. But now we see not yet 
all things put under Him. But we see Jesus, 
Who was made a little lower than the angels 
for the suffering of death, crowned with glo- 
ry and honor; that He by the grace of God 
should taste death for every man." 

Here we see side by side the ideal position 
of the first Adam, and the temporality of his 
position lower than that, "a little lower than 
the angels." Then the ideal is broken in on, 
"we see not yet all things put under him" 
(or not now under him). Then we see Jesus, 
also temporarily made a little lower than the 
angels, as a means of bringing the race out 
from under that position, and placing them 
back in their ideal position. 

This brings us to the consideration of a 
question often raised in the discussion of 
Adam's position. It is easy to suppose that 
salvation puts man back where Adam fell 
from, but this is a mistaken idea. Adam had 
placed before him, as we have shown, an 
ideal position, but he was not immediately 
promoted to that position. Temporarily he 



64 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

was placed lower than the angels on proba- 
tion. 

In order to help understand the relation 
of the ideal and temporary positions of Adam 
and the result of his probation, let us draw T 
three horizontal lines, parallel with each 
other, as shown in accompanying diagram. 
Let the top line represent the ideal position 
of Adam, the next line below, his temporary 
position while on probation, and the bottom 
line the place to which he fell as a result of 
his sin. It is evident that Adam held a pro- 
bationary position when he was put in the 
garden. He seems not yet to have been 
placed in charge of the government of the 
earth, but was put in the garden to be tested 
as to his ability to be put over all the earth, 
Something in that earth had to be subjected. 
It is evident also from the sequel that Luci- 
fer was not immediately deposed from the 
throne of the government of the earth, for it 
is one of the rules of government that an in- 
cumbent of office holds his position until his 
successor qualifies and is appointed. Some- 
times, as in the case of the presidency of the 
United States, the incumbent holds office 
after the election of his successor, and 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 




66 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

until his inauguration. There are analogies 
in human government like those of Divine 
government. 

So we find Adam presented in the first 
chapter of Genesis on the plane of probation, 
represented by the middle line. Now proba- 
tion implies the possibility of promotion. If 
we may suppose that Adam had stood the 
test, we may also suppose that he would have 
been promoted to the plane represented by 
the top line, which we may call the plane of 
promotion. That is the position he was de- 
signed to occupy, but to test his eligibility to 
serve in that position he was put in the po- 
sition represented by the second line, which 
we may call the plane of probation. He fail- 
ed in his probation and therefore fell to a 
lower plane, represented by the bottom line, 
which we will call the plane of rejection. As 
a consequence all his descendants are, by 
nature, on this lower plane. 

Our Position in Adam and in Christ 

Now the question arises, Are we by the 
work of Christ brought back to the position 
from whence Adam fell, or to some other po- 
sition*? It is clear that we are not made like 
Adam as a result of being saved; we do not 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 67 

have Adamic perfection. And yet our posi- 
tion judicially, through faith in Christ, is 
that represented by the top line, a condition 
that will come to its full manifestation and 
establishment in the resurrection. The pur- 
pose of God in Adam is represented by the 
top line. He failed to come up to that pur- 
pose. But Jesus Christ, the second Adam, 
has, as a result of His probation, been pro- 
moted, " appointed heir of all things." (Heb. 
1:2.) Therefore, as all the descendants of 
Adam failed in his failure, so all who are in 
Christ by the new birth are by faith put in 
the same position as He. Judicially we are 
there now. We "sit together in heavenly 
places in Christ Jesus. " 

Naturally we are born in Adam, and there- 
fore on the plane of rejection. While the 
atonement has lifted the race penalty from 
infants judicially, yet, every one who has 
come to years of accountability is on this 
plane of rejection unless he has accepted 
Jesus Christ by faith and been born again, 
in which case he is carried clear past Adam 
up to what Adam was intended for ideally. 
After we have been brought up to the plane 
of promotion we still hold a probationary re- 



68 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

lation until the resurrection will finally com- 
plete redemption. So far as we are concern- 
ed, of course our responsibility ceases at 
death, but we are not placed up there exper- 
imentally until the resurrection. However 
here we are subject to limitations to which 
Adam was not subject. We do not have the 
splendid physique of Adam, nor his splendid 
mental qualities; but Christ Jesus has borne 
all our infirmities, so that in the sight of God 
our standing is above that of Adam in the 
garden. God sees us in Christ, and, in Him 
we are on this plan« for which Adam was 
designed, but to which he did not prove him- 
self capable of attaining. 

Adam was in harmony with God on the 
basis of his own works, and had to maintain 
his relationship to God through right works, 
but Ave have our relationship to God through 
faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. 
If Ave may suppose that Adam maintained 
his obedience, he would have attained his 
promotion through work instead of through 
grace. Adam having failed, God has made 
provision that what Avas lost in Adam ideally 
should be restored in Christ, and that we 
should attain to that position not by works 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 69 

of righteousness which we have done, but by 
faith in the obedience of Jesus Christ. No 
man had ever attained to that position be- 
fore; but the man Christ Jesus, the second 
Adam, stood the test and was promoted to 
this position. If we are going to hold this po- 
sition we cannot do it in Adam, but by faith 
in Christ Who stood the test by works of 
righteousness which he did, which we obtain 
by faith in Him 

I feel this is quite an important matter for 
this reason: so many are assuming that our 
standing before God is according to the ex- 
tent we succeed in imitating Jesus. If this 
were God's method it would mean that if we 
succeeded in imitating Jesus we would make 
our home in heaven, and if we failed in doing 
that we would not reach heaven. It should 
be clear to anyone that, if that were the 
basis, every one of us would terribly fail and 
go to hell. The idea is abroad in the land 
that some folks are going to heaven because 
they have succeeded in being good, and that 
others are going to hell because they are so 
bad, while the whole matter is involved in 
what the relation of each one is to Jesus 
Christ, regardless of what their past history 



70 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

has been, before accepting Him as their Sav- 
ior. 

As in the case of Noah's ark, a type of 
Christ, deliverance did not depend on birth, 
species or deeds, for all kinds of animals 
were saved in the ark, while there were ani- 
mals just like them lost. The whole ques- 
tion was whether they were in the ark or out 
of it. In like manner all sorts and conditions 
of men are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, 
while other men of their same nation and 
former habits are lost. The difference is de- 
termined entirely by being in Christ or out 
of Him. However, do not forget that, "if 
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: 
old things are passed away; behold, all things 
are become new." If you are down here, on 
this bottom line, in your own works, you are 
bound to stay there, because these works of 
the flesh are on the plane of the rejected 
works of Adam, and can never rise above it. 
The man who is doing his w r orks of benev- 
olence and helping folks only to be good mor- 
ally is equally rejected in the sight of God 
with the drunkard and the thief, and is a 
little more dangerous. The question is, are 
you in Christ or out of Him^ If you are in 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 71 

Him, .you are already judicially promoted by 
Him to sit with Him in heavenly places. 

Before leaving this subject the question 
may arise as to what position the angels oc- 
cupy. They evidently hold their position by 
works of their own righteousness. Since we 
have seen in a previous lecture that the basis 
of justification is righteousness, we may con- 
clude that those angels who maintained their 
relationship to God in refusing to yield to 
Lucifer, hold that relationship by works of 
their own righteousness. Two-thirds of the 
angels resisted the temptation of Lucifer and 
by works of righteousness held their own, 
while the third of them, as we have reason 
to suppose, fell. 

A comparison of the song of the redeemed 
men in Revelation 5:9 with the praise of the 
angels, in the 12th verse of the same chapter, 
bears out this different basis of standing as 
regards men and angels. Those redeemed 
from men sing, "Thou wast slain, and hast 
redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of 
every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
nation." But the angels say, " Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and hon- 



72 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

our and glory, and blessing," without a word 
about redeeming them. 

The Second Governor's Test and Failure 

Now to return to Adam, since he was de- 
signed to occupy the position represented by 
the top line, and he must attain to that po- 
sition in order to qualify for the governorship 
In the world province, he is put in the limited 
•sphere of the garden to be tested as to his 
eligibility to occupy the larger position. In 
the meantime Lucifer, while disowned, is not 
♦dethroned, awaiting the issue of Adam's 
testing. In the inscrutable purposes of God, 
the fallen angel prince is to be used in the 
testing of the new candidate for the world 
governorship. 

The duty given to Adam was to subdue the 
earth, and it is evident, from what he met 
in the garden, that there was something to 
subdue. His instructions were to "have do- 
minion." That word "have" seems to con- 
vey the idea of "take." Adam's work was 
to be to take dominion of the earth, subdue 
it and bring it back into its proper place, 
morally, in the universe, as God had already 
restored it physically. 

In the limited sphere of the garden Adam 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 73 

was to qualify under test for his new office. 
The test was to be obedience, for no under- 
lord could be trusted to administer the af- 
fairs of the already once rebellious world 
who would not be faithful in every point. 
That the test might be of obedience only, the 
Lord God concealed the reasons for His com- 
mand in His own counsels, in order to see if 
the new candidate would set up his own 
reasoning powers against those of God. A 
very good and desirable tree in the midst of 
the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and 
of evil, was pointed out and the eating of its 
fruit prohibited under penalty of death. 

It is instructive to study the method of Lu- 
cifer, now Satan, in his devices to lead Adam 
and Eve to disobey God. The only thing the 
enemy could do to overthrow the new provin- 
cial governor was to induce him to disobey, 
and there was only one thing he could do in 
order to be disobedient, as he had but one 
prohibition, and that was to eat of the for- 
bidden fruit. 

We have no inkling from the Bible account 
that Adam and Eve had any inclination 
whatever to eat of the tree of knowlege of 
good and evil until the serpent began his 



74 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

work in the case, prompted by Lucifer who 
kept out of sight. I imagine they walked 
about that tree with just as much liberty 
as about any other tree; if the fruit was in 
their reach that it never occurred to them 
that it was possible to touch it. I do not 
think that Adam and Eve had to restrain 
their appetites for fear they might want 
to eat of that fruit; they were perfectly 
satisfied in the eating of the things that 
were permissible for them to eat. 

How then did Satan succeed in getting 
them to eat the forbidden fruit 1 He accom- 
plished his end by inducing Eve to substitute 
reasoning for obedience — by making her own 
reason her guide of conduct instead of God's 
word. There is no doubt that Eve had a very 
good mind. She did not have for ancestors a 
train of sinners to give her an inheritance of 
a twisted and weakened mind. If the test 
had been of Adam's and Eve's reason they 
doubtless would have stood the test. Satan 
deceived them into thinking it was a test of 
reason instead of a test of obedience, and 
thereby he gained the ascendency over them. 

First he reasoned that it was unkind of 
God to forbid their eating the fruit of so good 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 75 

a tree, "Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of 
every tree of the garden?" 

Next he reasoned that the penalty was out 
of all proportion to the offense, " Ye shall not 
surely die" The devil was a no-hellite from 
the start, you see. Wherever you find that 
doctrine you may know its origin. 

Continuing the reasoning process Satan in- 
sinuated that God was keeping them out of 
what would be good for them, "God doth 
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then 
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as 
gods, knowing good and evil." 

By this time the woman was persuaded to 
examine that tree — not wdth any special de- 
sire to eat of the fruit of it as yet, nor with 
any longing to taste its untried flavors — but 
from the standpoint of investigating really 
whether the statements of the serpent might 
not be true. On examination she found that 
it was good for food, and that therefore 
there was no poison in it to kill them. This 
she could determine without tasting it. She 
was not mistaken in her diagnosis that the 
fruit was good for food. She looked at it and 
saw that it had the marks of edible fruit. 
We make a mistake if we think that was a 



76 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

bad tree, or that the eating of the fruit of 
the tree, in itself, had any evil effect upon 
Adam and Eve. That was not where the 
trouble was. She reasoned that the fruit of 
the tree could do them no harm physically, 
for it was good fruit, and that reasoning, so 
far as reasoning goes, was sound. 

Then she examined it from the standpoint 
of beauty, and, with her perfect esthetic 
taste, saw that it was beautiful to the eyes. 
She found that in that regard also it was like 
the fruit of the other trees which put it in a 
class with them- Then, lastly, and most prac- 
tical, she saw that it was desired to make one 
wise. It had one quality that no other tree 
possessed, and the eating of its fruit would 
impart to the eater what no other fruit could 
impart. From the standpoint of reasoning 
only the woman's conclusion was sound. If 
it had been a test of reason only they would 
have been safe in eating of the fruit. But 
their obedience, and not their reason, was on 
trial, and, under test obedience failed. They 
could not find any reason for God's prohibi- 
tion, so went by their own reasoning, instead 
of by His word, a thing the human family has 
ever since been prone to do. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 77 

The experience of Adam and Eve is en- 
lightening as to the origin of sin. It shows 
plainly that God is not the author of sin. God 
created the man and woman good; but their 
use of the good tree contrary to God's com- 
mand originated sin in the human family. 
Sin, as it relates to conduct, is the transgres- 
sion of a law, not the contracting of a disease, 
or the imbibing of poison. 

Of course now, when all are born with in- 
bred sin, we can not test the case perfectly in 
children; but how misappropriated good can 
become sin may be illustrated by the first 
known transgression of a child. Let mother 
bake a good cake, cut it in pieces ready for 
dinner, put it on the table and tell her little 
son that he must not touch it until supper 
time. Then let her leave the room for a lit- 
tle time and return to find a shadow on her 
little son's face, a sneaking kind of expres- 
sion about him that she never saw there be- 
fore, a I-don't-wan't-to-see-mother kind of 
action. He has eaten a piece of that good 
cake, contrary to mother's command and the 
deed has resulted in sin; not because the cake 
has injured him physically or morally, but 
because he ate it contrary to a known com- 



78 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

mand. We can see from this that, in its orig- 
inal conception, sin must have been the mis- 
use of that which was good, used in a way 
contrary to a known command. 

Lucifer's Temporary Triumph 

Now that Adam, candidate for second pro- 
vincial governor of the world province, has 
been tested and failed to qualify, the ques- 
tion arises as to the resultant position of 
i; Lucifer, the discarded governor. There 
is a well-known rule in church government, 
and a similar one in state, that an officer or 
committee holds office until a successor is ap- 
pointed and qualified for office. Since Adam 
failed to qualify for the office of world gov- 
ernor this would leave his predecessor in 
office, and, since the failure of Adam was not 
only personal; but racial, there is no hope of 
a natural descendant of Adam qualifying to 
fill the place. It therefore appears that, in 
a way we are unable fully to understand or 
explain, Satan, by deceiving Adam and trip- 
ping him up in his attempt to qualify, has, to 
a large extent, kept the reins of world gov- 
ernment in his own hands. 

We can, perhaps, get an illustration of 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 79 

this unique condition of things from a Bible 
incident. Bible history illustrations are al- 
ways so much more apt than anything we 
<^an find elsewhere. Raul, the son of Kish 
was once properly qualified and anointed as 
the first king of Israel. You remember that 
lie started to rule in a victorious and success- 
ful manner. But, on account of disobedience 
in the matter of exterminating the Am- 
alekites, as God told him to do, the prophet 
Samuel comes to him with the unequivocal 
message: "The Lord hath rent the kingdom 
of Israel from thee this day and hath given 
it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than 
thou." 

In spite of the fact that this sentence is 
given in the past tense — ' ' the Lord hath rent 
the kingdom of Israel from thee" — Saul re- 
mained in the office some years afterward. 
Continuing in the same vein, Samuel went 
down to the house of Jesse and anointed 
David king to suceeed Saul. But rejected 
Saul continued in the office of king, and 
anointed David remained as an obscure indi- 
vidual keeping his father's sheep. Eventual- 
ly he is called to the court of Saul, and there- 
bv renders obedience to him. When trouble 



80 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

broke out as a result of the jealousy of Saul, 
David, though anointed king, is driven out 
for a time into the wilderness. 

Now the position of Saul, between the time 
of his judicial rejection and the time when 
David actually took over the government, il- 
lustrates in a measure the relation of Satan 
to the government of this world after Adam's 
failure to qualify. Though judicially reject- 
ed, Satan still held sway by virtue of his suc- 
cessor never having qualified. 

Study will show that the inference of this 
illustration is true. One Scripture that illu- 
minates the situation is that found in the 
first two chapters of Job. There is being 
held a congress of the "sons of God," possi- 
bly the governors of all the provinces of 
God's great universe. It is recorded of this 
occasion, " Satan came also among them." 
Here we get a glimpse into some of the other 
provinces of God's great universal empire. 
These other provincial governors, so to speak, 
came up to report to the Lord and Satan 
came to make his report also. The report 
does not satisfy our curiosity as to what is 
going on in the provinces of these other great 
dignities; the only report we have is of what 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 81 

is going on in the earth. The provincial gov- 
ernor of the earth, the one-time Lucifer but 
now Satan, is asked what he has been doing 
down in his province. He replies that he 
has been "going to and fro in the earth and 
walking up and down in it." Some one who 
has studied it says that this expression does 
not mean sauntering idly up and down 
through the earth in an aimless way, but 
carefully inspecting it and noting all that is 
taking place. 

God calls Satan's attention to his servant 
Job: "Hast thou considered My servant Job, 
that there is none like him in the earth, a per- 
fect and upright man, one that f eareth God, 
and escheweth evil'?" 

To this Satan replies: "Doth Job fear God 
for nought? Hast not Thou made an hedge 
about him, and about his house, and about 
all that he hath on every side? Thou hast 
blessed the work of his hands, and his sub- 
stance is increased in the land. But put 
forth Thine hand now, and touch all that he 
hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face." 

This shows, that, while Satan is the gover- 
nor of the earth, his rule is within explicit 



82 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

limitations, which God, the over-lord of 
heaven and earth, sets. 

In response to Satan's complaint God saw 
fit to give Satan a little more liberty in Job's 
case than he had previously had, as a result 
of which Job suffers great inexplicable losses 
for which he is in no way to blame, but which 
God gives him grace to endure. 

Satan came back to report at the next con- 
gress of the sons of God, and reports in the 
same manner as before. His attention is 
again called to Job and his stand of integrity 
in the face of calamity. Satan complains 
that he has been placed under too great re- 
strictions in dealing with him. For reasons 
that puzzled Job and his three friends, and 
about every one who has read the book since, 
God consents to move the hedge a little fur- 
ther back, but still puts distant limitations 
upon the adversary. 

This gives us only a glimpse, but an en- 
lightening glimpse, into the intricacies of 
how the earth is now governed. God is Lord 
over all, but, for a season the extent of which 
we do not know, and the reasons for which 
we cannot fathom, God has allowed Satan to 
remain a disobedient vassal king until a sue- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 83 

cessor qualifies and takes over the govern- 
ment. Who this successor will be and how 
the goverment is taken over we will have to 
leave to a later chapter. 

Further light is thrown on the present con- 
dition of things by the account of Jesus' 
temptation. This same Satan, who reported 
among the sons of God and tested Job, came 
to Jesus, some fifteen hundred years later, 
and, after showing Him all the kingdoms of 
the world and the glory of them, said to 
Him, "All these things will I give Thee if 
Thou wilt fall down and worship me." You 
will notice that Jesus did not dispute 
Satan's right to pass over the title to these 
kingdoms. If Satan had not for the present 
possessed this right is seems likely that Je- 
sus would have confronted him with that 
fact; but Jesus did not dispute it, and His 
later testimony accords with this supposi- 
tion. 

Jesus said, on another occasion, "The 
prince of this world cometh, and hath noth- 
ing in Me." Who else could this be bat the 
same prince that tempted Him in the begin- 
ning of His ministry'? 

In Paul's epistle we read of "the god of 



84 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

this world, (II Cor, 4:4); the " prince of the 
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh 
in the children of disobedience.' 1 ' (Eph. 2:2). 

God's periods may seem long to us, as He 
moves through eternity shaping things for 
the future. Satan's period of misrule has 
been long as we reckon time, but it will end. 
As truly as rejected Saul was eventually de- 
throned and David took the place for which 
he was anointed, so surely Satan will be 
eventually judged, as foretold in other 
Scriptures, and his righteous successor pro- 
moted to rule the world. 

Let us remember this as we study our way 
along chapter by chapter in the history of 
the government of the world as God has re- 
vealed it in His unfailing Word. 



CHAPTER IV. 

JESUS CHRIST THIRD PROVINCIAL 
GOVERNOR 

In taking up the subject of " Jesus Christ 
Third Provincial Governor" of the earth we 
come to the most remarkable series of 
events in the history of the universe, and es- 
pecially in the history of this planet on 
which we live. 

I am not able to produce proof that no 
other planet in the great universe, or even 
in this solar system, is not inhabited, but I 
am sure in my own mind that in no other 
world are there beings just like man; and 
surely it is impossible to believe that Jesus 
Christ ever lived in the likeness of man in 
any other of them, or was, or ever will be, 
crucified, buried and resurrected in any 
world but this. This world is evidently the 
arena in which are being wrought out in his- 
tory lessons for the instruction of the uni- 
verse. These tremenduous problems, once 



86 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

settled here, will be settled for all worlds. 
Note the suggestion in I Cor. 4:9. 

I confess myself, in the study of this sub- 
ject, often on territory not much travelled. 
I have no books to help me on some parts of 
the subject, and would not know exactly 
where to find any. So I am very much con- 
fined to the Scriptures for material, which is 
doubtless a good thing. 

God's Foreordination of Christ 

The first thing to notice about the appoint- 
ment of Jesus Christ as the third provincial 
Governor of this earth, is the fact of His 
foreordination of God to that position. Re- 
garding this fact I Peter 1 : 20 says of Him, 
He " verily was foreordained before the foun- 
dation of the world, but was manifest in 
these last times." From this we understand 
that God knew the disposition of Adam, and, 
seeing beforehand his fall, provided against 
the collapse of world government by a plan 
He was not as yet ready to make manifest. 
That this plan included the Atonement is 
evident from Revelation 13:8, where Jesus 
Christ is referred to as "The Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world." 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 87 

Some times people are disturbed when 
they realize that God knew beforehand that 
Adam would fall under his temptation, but 
we have every reason to be glad for His fore- 
knowledge, as this enabled Him to provide 
for the emergency. You have doubtless won- 
dered, in view of the penalty for eating the 
forbidden fruit: "in the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die," why Adam 
and Eve did not immediately die. Varied 
interpretations have been offered to explain 
why they did not instantly die, the general 
sense of which is that they did immediately 
die spiritually, but not at once physically. I 
have no fault to find with the orthodoxy of 
that interpretation, but am disposed to be- 
lieve that they would have died, body, soul 
and spirit, that day had it not been for the 
sacrifice of Jesus Christ already made judi- 
cially, by virtue of which sacrifice there was 
a suspension of sentence in their case. 
Though spiritually separated from God; 
"dead in tresspasses and sins," their natural 
lives were spared with a view to their re- 
pentance. 

It is noticeable that He who dealt with 
Adam and Eve regarding their transgression 



88 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

is called "the Lord God/' the name of God in 
His covenant relationship to the human fam- 
ily, doubtless the second Person of the Trin- 
ity, Whom we know as our Lord Jesus Christ. 
In the conversation between Eve and the 
serpent they had spoken of the Deity only as 
"God," but the One Who came walking in 
the garden to seek His fallen creatures was 
Jehovah God, the One already sacrificed ju- 
dicially, whose blood was already shed in the 
plans of God, and therefore counted on in 
His dealing with the human family. Jeho- 
vah God, knowing all that has taken place, 
asks questions calculated to draw out a con- 
fession from Adam and Eve, both of whom 
admit that they did eat of the forbidden fruit. 
Finally, after the confession, Jehovah God 
clothed them with the skins of animals, 
which presupposes bloodshed; and it is evi- 
dent that Adam and Eve, as a result of that 
confession and symbolization of the Atone- 
ment, obtained forgiveness and spiritual re- 
storation. While the natural consequences 
of their sin resulted in their being driven 
from the garden and eventually in their 
physical death, their spiritual welfare was 
secured in the Atonement. That Adam and 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY £J 

Eve obtained spiritual restoration to favor 
with God by sacrifice is evident from their 
attitude afterward, the names they gave 
their children, and the hope therein expressed 

Jesus Christ as Adam's Heir 

The government of this world was in an 
exceedingly complex condition after Adam's 
fall. There was fallen Lucifer, first provin- 
cial governor, still permitted liberty, and 
even usurping the government of the world; 
then there was Adam, second provincial 
governor, fallen and yet not dead; and then 
we see in promise, Jesus, third provincial 
governor, already in a measure of power, but 
not yet ready to take over the government. 

In view of these things the question can 
naturally be asked, Why should there be 
such a complexity of things at this time? It 
was doubtless in the power of God, in view 
of Lucifer's rebellion and Adam's disobedi- 
ence, to at once have sent Lucifer to the 
"everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
his angels," executed the death sentence 
upon Adam, thus quenching the race in him, 
and passed the government of the world over 
to Jesus Christ immediately, setting things 
suddenly and drastically right. But there 



90 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

are problems here that God is taking His 
own time and manner to solve, involving in 
their complexity the legal status of the 
human family. And then there is the love 
of God, seeking the welfare and rescue of 
Adam and his posterity in such a way as not 
to raise a question as to His justice in deal- 
ing with all transgressors. 

There is no way by which the world gov- 
ernment can be brought back into subjection 
to God except by Jesus Christ; yet it is 
God's design to do this in such a way that 
the human family shall have the offer of de- 
liverance. In order to do this, and retrieve 
the lost estate of Adam, Jesus Christ, 
though the Son of God, becomes the heir of 
Adam that He may thus obtain the right to 
get the lost inheritance back in the name of 
the human family, and thereby save an elect 
remnant of the race and put them with Him- 
self in the place of rule. To state the case in 
other words: Christ could have immediately 
taken over the w r orld government by virtue 
of appointment from God, but He could not 
have saved the human family without first 
becoming the legal heir of Adam. A forced 
conquest on His part would have restored 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 91 

the world province to the universal kingdom, 
but it would have been at the loss of the sub- 
jects. But, by becoming Adam's heir, He 
could win the victory in the name of man, 
and offer to man the position of joint-heir in 
the restored kingdom. To do this He must 
become man, take man's position and pay 
man's incurred penalty. 

This subject lies close to the heart of the 
Gospel. No matter how beautifully and at- 
tractively some other so-called gospel may be 
preached, there is no saving Gospel that does 
not present salvation in a lawful manner. 
One of the most common flaws in popular 
preaching is the failure to recognize the legal 
phase of the Gospel. This universe is run by 
laws, and these laws are kept by the Law- 
giver Himself; therefore when he offers par- 
don to any of His sinful subjects, He pro- 
vides for the legal carrying out of the penal- 
ty they have incurred. We have already 
seen, in a previous lecture, that God could 
not offer forgiveness to men on the mere 
basis that He loves them so well, without also 
offering it to angels. To have done so would 
have laid his dealings open to a charge of un- 
fairness and partiality, and the moral uni- 



92 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

verse would not stand on that kind of class 
legislation. It must be done in such a way 
that God can be just to all His creatures in 
His offering of salvation to man. This prob- 
lem is recognized in Romans 3:26. "That He 
might be just, and the justiiier of him which 
believeth in Jesus." That is, He had to do 
His saving work in such a way that what He 
did was just in the sight of all of His intel- 
ligent creatures, and yet would also procure 
the justification of those whose salvation He 
sought in the human family. While the plan 
of salvation, in its offer to all men on the 
basis of faith, is simple enough for the way- 
faring man to understand, yet the problems 
God solved in making it so simple were ex- 
ceedingly complex, and are well worthy of a 
diligent study on the part of the greatest 
statesmen and the most noted jurists. One 
secret of Charles G, Finney's success as an 
evangelist was that he had been a lawyer, 
and, when he was converted and called to the 
ministry, he was led to use his legal knowl- 
edge in the exposition of the Atonement in 
order to prove to his hearers that the Gospel 
offer met all the requirements of the law. He 
preached one of his most convincing sermons 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 93 

before the lawyers of Rochester, New York, 
whom he called together in order to preach 
to them. It is reported that practically every 
lawyer present was convinced of the truth, 
and many were truly converted. His appeal 
convincingly proved to them that the Gospel 
was not a mere sentimental story but the in- 
telligent plan of an all-wise Person, Who 
took into consideration every phase of the 
problem and provided fully for it. 

God's plan of forgiveness is not a mere 
overlooking of sins, but, with complete un- 
derstanding of all the issues involved, God 
has adjusted all the consequences by the 
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so that when he of- 
fers forgiveness to man on the simple basis 
of faith in Jesus Christ we are assured that 
there will be no unforseen problems to arise 
later, for the plan of salvation is based on 
legal premises. A good understanding of 
the legality of God's plan of salvation ex- 
cludes every Unitarian and Universalist the- 
ory of salvation. These man-made theories 
are swept aside in a moment when one comes 
to see that the cross is God's offer of salva- 
tion only because it is His demonstration of 
justice. 



94 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

It may be well at this time to consider the 
Bible proof that Jesus Christ is Adam's heir. 
It may at first appear that there is no state- 
ment to this effect in the Bible. But the 
first Bible promise that He would come, that 
given in Genesis 3:15, says that He will come 
as the seed of the woman. This would make 
Him the heir of Adam. In accord with this 
it is noticeable that in speaking of Himself, 
He used the term, "Son of man," as w r ell as 
the term "Son of God. In Genesis the He- 
brew word for "Adam" and "man" is the 
same, the word "Adam" being a transliter- 
ation and the word "man" a translation. 
That is, this "Adam" is the name for man in 
Hebrew, which in some places is spelled out 
in our letters and made a proper noun, and 
in other places it is changed into our word 
"man," and used as a common noun. So 
Jesus, in claiming to be the Son of man, was 
claiming also to be the son of Adam. Notice 
also that Luke's genealogy of Jesus (Luke 
3:23-38) traces Jesus' lineage back until it 
says, in verse 38, "the son of Adam, which 
was the son of God." So the Scripture proof 
is not wanting that Jesus Christ is Adam's 
lawful heir. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 95 

Now, an heir must accept the debts on an 
estate as well as the benefits. Jesus, there- 
fore, as heir of Adam, inherited the conse- 
quences of his fall, along with the right to 
retrieve the lost fortune of the human fam-* 
ily. It is helpful to read in this connection 
Hebrews 2:14-16, " Forasmuch then as the 
children are partakers of flesh and blood, He 
also Himself likewise took part of the same; 
that through death He might destroy him 
that had the power of death, that is, the 
devil; and deliver them who through fear 
of death were all their lifetime subject to 
bondage. For verily He took not on Him the 
nature of angels; but He took on Him the 
seed of Abraham." 

But the Bible does not stop in its portray- 
al of the relation of Jesus Christ to the 
human family by showing Him to be heir of 
Adam. It takes up Abraham, two thousand 
years after Adam, and shows that God prom- 
ised that Christ should be his heir. After 
various promises to Abraham, disbursed 
through several years of his life, that his 
seed should be as numerous as the "dust of 
the earth" (Gen. 13:16), and as the stars in 
number (Gen. 15:5), and after reiterating 



96 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

these figures in Genesis 22:17, God narrows 
down the word "seed" in the last clause to a 
single individual, represented by the singu- 
lar pronoun. "Thy Seed shall possess the 
gate of His enemies," which Seed Galatians 
3:16 shows to be Christ: "Now to Abraham 
and his Seed were the promises made. 
He saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but 
as of one, and to thy Seed, Which is Christ." 
Again about a thousand years later, God 
promised David (II Sam. 7:12-16), that 
Christ should be his heir, and that, in conse- 
quence, his throne should be established for- 
ever. Jesus acknowledged the title "Son of 
David," and His geneaology, as recorded in 
Matthew, purposely eliminates that part from 
Adam to Abraham in order to emphasize two 
things stated in the first verse, that He is the 
"Son of David, the Son of Abraham." The 
same first chapter of Matthew also records 
the fact of His being born the Seed of the 
woman in such a way as no other person ever 
was or ever will be born. From this it will 
be seen that the first chapter of Matthew re- 
cords the fulfillment of three leading proph- 
ecies of the Old Testament. The genealogy 
of Luke proves that He was the heir of Adam, 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 97 

and the one in Matthew that He was the heir 
of Abraham and the heir of David. 

Preliminary Conquest of Satan 

It is necessary that the third provincial 
governor, like the second, whose loss He has 
come to retrieve, be tested in order to quali- 
fy for the office He has come to occupy. Of 
His ability as Son of God there is no ques- 
tion, but He must qualify for the governor- 
ship of the world province as the Son of 
man. 

Lucifer, disowned and only awaiting the 
appointment of a successor to be dethroned, 
has, by legal processes and cunning crafti- 
ness, overthrown the one appointed to take 
his place, Adam, so that he never qualified 
for office, as a result of which Lucifer retains, 
temporarily, the office of provincial governor 
until another candidate can qualify for the 
office. As he connived to disqualify Adam, 
he may be counted upon to work for the un- 
doing of the second Adam. Indeed, before 
the second Adam can proceed with His work 
of rescuing the race. He must show Himself 
able to cope with the one who overthrew His 
predecessor, in whose place he appears. So, 
immediately after Jesus Christ receives His 



98 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

anointing, He is led of the Spirit into the 
wilderness for a preliminary conflict with 
this usurper. The antagonist knows the sta- 
tus of the new candidate, and that He has 
appeared on the scene to qualify for the job 
he himself so dishonestly holds. He who 
beat Adam out of qualifying, is now going 
to defeat Jesus Christ from qualifying if it is 
possible. 

The hope of Satan in opposing Christ was 
to lead Him to resort to His Deity in order 
to win the victory, so the results of the vic- 
tory could not be credited to man. Satan 
practically said to himself: "Now if I can 
get Jesus Christ to defend Himself on the 
ground of His Deity, He will never win the 
victory He is trying to obtain for humanity, 
and I will, in consequence, keep humanity 
under my control." 

The contest, it should be observed, was not 
whether Christ as Son of God could over- 
come Satan, but whether Jesus as Son of 
man could do so. We hear much now-a-days 
about the laws of civilized warfare. The 
Bible acknowledges laws of spiritual war- 
fare: "And if a man also strive for mas- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 93 

teries, yet is he not crowned, execpt he strive 
lawfully." — II Tim. 2:5. Now it would have 
been a breach of spiritual warfare for Jesus 
to have used the weapons of His Deity in 
overcoming Satan in a battle in which man 
was to get the credit. When God arranged 
the first conflict between Adam and Satan 
He determined the weapons of man. There- 
fore, when the Son of God consented to 
champion man's cause He must be confined 
to the use of the weapons God has appointed 
for man. Indeed, if the Son of God cannot 
defeat Satan with these weapons, how could 
man be expected to do so? Therefore the in- 
tegrity and value of God's word was on test 
as well as man. 

We find that the temptation of Jesus was 
much more varied than that of Adam and 
Eve. In their case there was but one vul- 
nerable point, for God had given but one 
command. Their knowledge of good and 
evil covered but a single item. If Satan 
could not get them there he could not over- 
come them at all. The eating of the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil had thrown open 
the entire field of right and wrong, and man 



100 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

was now responsible at every point. To meet 
the enlarged field of temptation God had in 
the meantime enlarged His commandments 
to cover all phases of duty. So, though Jesus 
was tempted in multiform ways, God's Word 
was also multiform and off ered instruction at 
every point. This one fundamental was alike 
in the temptation of the first Adam and the 
second: obey God and qualify; or disobey 
God and disqualify. 

Observe how Satan tried to get Jesus to 
depart from the laws of the conflict. He 
first approaches Jesus, hungry from forty 
days fasting, with the suggestion, "If Thou 
be the Son of God, command that these 
stones be made bread." But Jesus was not 
there to show what God could do; He was 
fighting a battle as champion of the human 
family. So he replies, "It is written, Man 
shall not live by bread alone, but by every 
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God." Again the enemy tries the same 
feint, reinforcing it by a deft turn of Scrip- 
ture. He suggests that Jesus leap from the 
pinnacle of the temple, a most spectacular 
thing to do as a means of introducing His 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 101 

campaign: "If Thou be the Son of God, cast 
Thyself down: for it is written, He shall 
give His angels charge concerning thee." 
But Jesus simply gives more Scripture: "It 
is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord 
thy God." One more temptation, this time 
calculated to appeal to the purpose of His 
mission, the obtaining of power over the na- 
tions by subjection to Satan, the present pro- 
vincial ruler, is also overcome: "It is writ- 
ten, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
and Him only shalt thou serve." 

It is noticeable that Jesus, in this conflict, 
chose for the defeat of Satan, three passages 
from the book of Deuteronomy, the book the 
higher critics attack as most untrustworthy 
in the, to them, unreliable Pentateuch. It 
was not a question as to whether the Son of 
God or Satan could conquer the other; that 
had been settled long before: *'God cannot 
be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He 
any man." (Jas. 1:13). But the issue at stake 
when Jesus was tempted was whether the 
Son of man could conquer Satan with the 
weapons God provided for man's warfare 
against him. If we may so say, in this conflict, 



102 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Jesus, leaving the great sword of His Deity 
hanging unused at His side, went into the 
armory God had provided for man, selected 
three weapons popularly considered the least 
powerful, and, in three successive rounds, 
utterly defeated Satan. 

What a demonstration of the power of 
God's Word was this threefold victory of the 
Son of man over Satan. What an encourage- 
ment to us to use always the sword of the 
Spirit, which is the word of God, and all the 
other pieces of defensive and offensive war- 
fare, by which we can always be victorious. 

It seems to me, as I think of it this after- 
noon, that the Old Testament, filled with 
promises, is like a great armory with the 
walls just hanging full of two-edged swords, 
bayonets, spears and every conceivable offen- 
sive and defensive weapon for any conceiv- 
able temptation. In this fight with the devil 
Jesus just stepped down into what He knew 
would some day be considered the most doubt- 
ful book of the Old Testament, picked up 
three of those weapons to let men see they 
would work. Praise the Lord, they worked: 
and, since then, God has put a second story 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 103 

on the armory, the New Testament, and 
filled it with modern devices of warfare, so 
that, in a sense, we have a greater advantage 
over the situation than Jesus had, and there 
is no reason why, if regenerated, filled with 
the Holy Ghost and careful in Bible study, 
we should not be continuously victorious. If 
we will be obedient to the Holy Ghost's 
promptings, He will direct us to the very 
arrow, the very spiritual torpedo, so to 
speak, the very weapon of some kind that 
this very particular battle needs, and we 
can be victorious in the fight. 

The World Rejects the Governor 

It is customary for candidates for office 
to announce their platform. We find in the 
Sermon on the Mount the third provincial 
Governor's proclamation of the platform of 
His proposed government. 

Following the sermon in Matthew, which 
is kown as the " Gospel of the Kingdom," 
there are recorded fourteen miracles which 
are manifestations of the power of the new 
Governor. 

After passing with His disciples through 



104 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

all parts of the Land of Israel, the most fa- 
vored nation of earth, and the one that had 
the promises, setting forth His teaching and 
demonstrating His authority by miracles, 
He enters at last their capital city, offering 
Himself to them as King. The Gospel of 
Matthew records of this event, "All this 
was done, that it might be fulfilled which 
ivas spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye 
-the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King 
cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon 
an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." (Matt. 
21:4,5). 

The new world Governor rode up that 
morning to w r hat is destined to be the cap- 
ital city of the world, as the prophets said 
He would do when He comes to take control, 
made His way to the temple, the center of 
their national life, and began His clean-up 
work by driving the traders out of the tem- 
ple. In this He was interfered with by the 
authorities in office and admonished to 
desist, which He did. He did not come to 
thrust His governorship upon an unwilling 
people, but was willing to bide His time un- 
til the Father gave Him the kingdom. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 105 

The Old Testament prophecies regarding 
the kingdom pointed to His taking the king- 
dom at this time. Naturally there will 
arise here the question, If the Jews had re- 
ceived Him then, where would have been the 
Atonement ? To this we can reply Scriptural- 
ly that God knew the end from the begin- 
ning. He knows the law of the sinful nat- 
ure, both in individual and national life. The 
sinful heart can always be counted on as not 
being in subjection to the Jaw of God, neither 
indeed can be, but will work according to its 
own law. Therefore, having allowed them 
an opportunity to demonstrate their unwil- 
lingness to submit to His kingdom at that 
time, God proceeds to unveil the mystery of 
the church that had been hidden up to this 
time. 

Tried and Executed as a Traitor 

As a sequel to His rejection the third pro- 
vincial Governor is tried as a traitor and ex- 
ecuted, which looks like a failure of the 
whole plan. A review of His trial will be 
interesting as showing what His claims were. 

First there was His ecclesiastical trial. 
After trying to secure some testimony on 



106 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

which to condemn Jesus, and failing, even 
the two witnesses who spoke of His destroy- 
ing the temple and building it in three days 
not agreeing, the high priest said to Jesus, 
(Matt. 26:63), "I adjure Thee by the living: 
God, that Thou tell us whether Thou be the 
Christ, The Son of God." Jesus' response to 
this question was affirmative, and on this 
charge He w 7 as condemned to be guilty of 
death for blasphemy — that is, the charge 
was that He, a mere man, as they declared 
He was, claiming to be the Son of God, and 
therefore equal with God, was blasphemous, 
a sin punishable by death according to the 
Levitical law. (Lev. 24:16). 

Then followed his civil trial before Pilate 
as related in Matt. 27:11. "Jesus stood 
before the governor; and the governor asked 
Him, sa}dng, Art Thou the king of the Jews'? 
And Jesus said unto him, Thou say est." 
This is supplemented in John 18:36. " Jesus 
answered, My kingdom is not of this world; 
if My kingdom were of this world, then 
would My servants fight, that I should not 
be delivered to the Jews; but now is My 
kingdom not from hence." 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 107 

From this it will be seen that He definitely 
claimed to be a king, and was tried by a rep- 
resentative of the highest civil authority of 
the world on whose orders He was executed 
under the inscription, "This is the King of 
the Jews." He was therefore condemned 
by the ecclesiastical court on the charge of 
blasphemously claiming to be the Son of 
God, and by the civil court for seditiously 
claiming to be the King of the Jews. For 
these alleged crimes He was sent to the 
prison of death. But Jesus, from His prison 
of death, appealed His case to the Supreme 
Court of the Universe, Which, in three days 
sitting, reviewed the evidence, found His 
claims to be the Son of God and the King of 
the Jews to be correct, reversed the verdict 
of the lower courts, and sent an official angel 
to set Him free from the prison of death. 

Going After the Appointment 

Notice, if }^ou will, that Jesus at this time 
has not taken the kingdom over; He is yet 
in the qualifying stage. 

In Luke 19:11-27 Jesus had foretold some- 
thing about His plans; "As they heard 



108 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

these things, He added and spake a parable, 
because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and be- 
cause they thought that the kingdom of God 
should immediately appear. He said there- 
fore, A certain nobleman went into a far 
country to receive for himself a kingdom, 
and to return.'' This nobleman He was 
talking about was Himself. He was going into 
the far country of heaven and to God's 
throne to get the appointment as world 
Governor. He had been down here qualify- 
ing for the position. Through the differ- 
ent stages of the temptation, His life's 
work and rejection, the final Atone- 
ment on the cross, the resurrection and as- 
cension, He has qualified, and now goes to 
God to report and secure the governorship of 
the world, as Adam's heir. 

The Measure of Christ's Grace 

At this time it may be instructive to study 
a little what His plan to offer redemption 
to the human family cost Him. In II Corin- 
thians 8:9 we read, "For ye know the grace 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He 
was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 109 

that ye through His poverty might be rich. ' ' 
The depth of His descent is measured be- 
tween the two extremes in this verse: "He 
was rich" and "He became poor." Have 
you ever considered how rich Jesus was 
before He came to earth as a man 1 ? Take 
the test of values most often used among 
men, His material wealth. From many 
Bible references it seems clear that Jesus 
is the creative Agent of the Godhead. While 
it is proper to say that God created all 
things, yet it was through the second Per- 
son of the Trinity that the creative act was 
done. One may suppose that Creatorship 
constitutes ownership. If this be so, Jesus 
Christ was rich in the possession of what 
He created. There are a few men in this 
world who are considered rich, but they each 
lay claim to but a little of the earth's treas- 
ures. But this One whose wealth we are 
estimating, owns all the earth, because He 
created it. And not only so, but He owns 
the sun also. They tell me that the sun is 
so large that if it were hollow, the earth 
could be put inside of it, and the moon could 
revolve around it with plenty of room to 



110 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

spare. That is a pretty good sized lighting 
plant for one individual to own. Then He 
owns the other planets, that, aside from our 
earth, belong to this solar system. And 
beside this astronomers tell us there are a 
multitude of other suns with other great sys- 
tems of planets. I have heard that suns 
have been discovered by powerful telescopes 
so far away, and so great, enormously larger 
than our sun, that it takes the light from 
them about a thousand years to reach us. 
Just as an illustration of how broad is the 
universe that constitutes the material wealth 
of Jesus Christ, suppose that the place 
where He went to get the kingdom was lo- 
cated over there where that distant star is. 
Suppose again that Jesus, when He ascend- 
ed from the Mt. of Olives had taken light as 
His chariot and travelled with it 186,000 
miles a second, eleven million times as fast 
as the fastest railroad train in the world: 
even then He would not have had time in 
all these centuries to have gone over there 
and returned. And that is the radius of 
the great circle of the material universe. 
But while He was rich in material pos- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 111 

sessions they may be considered the least 
valuable of what constituted His riches. He 
was rich also in glory, and, while not yield- 
ing to description as readily, the glory is 
larger than the material possessions. I 
think almost any king would be willing to 
part with all his material possessions rather 
than to part with the glory of his kingdom, 
at ]east in times of peace. Then Jesus was 
rich in love — in His Father's love. I sup- 
pose a king would give up his material pos- 
sessions and his throne before he would be 
willing to part with his queen, if he loved 
her. So love is the greatest possession of 
all. In all these things Jesus was rich — in- 
comparably rich. 

But, "He became poor." Now, He did 
not play become poor; He did not lay His 
possessions over into the hands of an ad- 
ministrator to manage while He was gone, 
so He could take them up again if His 
venture should fail. No, no, "He became 
poor." The title to the ownership of all 
this, that He held as a member of the God- 
head, He relinquished. I do not think He 
reserved anything in the way of possessions. 



112 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

We would think that if Rockefeller gave 
one-half of what he has to some benevolent 
cause, it would be marvelous. We would 
think if he gave away everything but a half 
a million that he reserved to live on the 
rest of his days, he would be counted very 
benevolent. But what would you think of 
a Rockefeller that checked out the last cent 
he owned, and became as poor as the poor- 
est, because he loved the cause of man so 
much? Well, that w r ould faintly picture 
what Jesus has done. Not only this, but He 
laid down His glory. Otherwise how can 
His prayer in the 17th chapter of John be 
explained: "And now, Father, glorify 
Thou Me with Thine own self with the 
glory which I had with Thee before the 
world was." If he still possessed the glory, 
why did He ask for it? Then, last and 
greatest of all, on the cross He said, "My 
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" 
The love even was surrendered. Oh, the in- 
tense mystery of the love of Jesus Christ for 
this human family indicated in those words, 
"He became poor." 

But, mark well, He relinquished posses- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 113 

sions only- He did not lay down His Deity, 
nor His personality, but possessions only. He 
did all this that He might reach us at our 
great depth and bring us up to His great 
height. 

Jesus Receives the Appointment 

We have already seen Jesus going after 
the appointment to the kingdom. That He 
received it we are assured in Hebrews 1:1-2. 
"God Who at sundry times and in divers 
manners spake in time past unto the fa- 
thers by the prophets, hath in these last 
days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom 
He hath appointed heir of all things, by 
Whom also He made the worlds." The fact 
that God has appointed Him heir of all 
things, though in the beginning He had 
created them all, shows that in the interim 
He had relinquished possession of them. 
As indicated before, He surrendered His 
title to all things as Son of God that He 
might merit the right to them in the name 
of the Son of man. He employed this re- 
markable method in order to make a way 
whereby, in His return to the bosom of the 



114 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Father, He might bring back with Him 
from the human family those who accept 
His righteousness by faith. Behold what a 
miracle is this: the transmutation of what 
were the possessions of the Son of God in- 
to the possessions of the Son of man. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is back now in 
possession of all that vast material universe 
we were talking about: God has appointed 
Him heir of all things. He is back also in 
the glory that He had with the Father be- 
fore the world was; He is back, too, in the 
blessedness of the fellowship of the love of 
the Father; just as rich as He ever was, and 
the most wonderful thing about it is that He 
holds the title of it all in the name of Adam, 
and is therefore authorized to take in as 
joint-heirs of all these possessions every 
one of the sons of Adam who will by faith 
in his shed blood receive the new birth. 

Oh, what are you folks fussing about 
that estate down there for? Why are you 
people having trouble about your father's 
will? Why are you going into that lawsuit 
about that property, anyway? Why are you 
grinding your life out trying to get bigger 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 115 

wages 1 We have the privilege of being 
joint-heirs with Jesus Christ in the mag- 
nificent possessions of the universe, and, 
with this prospect, can be satisfied with 
anything down here. Our inheritance is 
larger than our little cups can measure. 
The reality of it all will not dawn on us in 
a minute, but it is true. 

Turn to Romans 8:15-19 and read it in 
view of what we have just seen: "For ye 
have not received the spirit of bondage 
again to fear; but ye have received the 
Spirit of adoption, Avhereby we cry, Abba, 
Father. The Spirit itself beareth ^witness 
with our spirit, that we are the children of 
God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of 
God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be 
that we suffer with Him, that we may be 
also glorified together. For I reckon that 
the sufferings of this present time are not 
worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed in us. For the 
earnest expectation of the creature wait- 
eth for the manifestation of the sons of 
God." 

In this course of lectures we are dealing 



116 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

with Jesus Christ mainly in His relation- 
ship to this world alone. From the ground 
we have just covered we see how vast are 
His relationships with other things and be- 
ings beside this world and ourselves, hi 
this connection we find Him spoken of in 
the book of Revelation as having many 
crowns, of which the crown of the govern- 
ment of this world is but one. This little, 
old, wrecked planet, where there have oc- 
curred the most mighty transgressions in 
the universe, is now the theatre in w T hich 
is being demonstrated God's wonderful 
grace and power to forgive sins in such a 
way as to be just and the Justifier of him 
that believeth, to the end that all His creat- 
ures may learn forever the lesson of what 
sin will do, and what it has cost the Son 
of God to maintain the integrity of the uni- 
verse against the inroads of that sin which 
Lucifer committed when he fell from the 
position of one of the stars of God, event- 
ually dragging mankind in his fall. 

A personal lesson may well be driven 
home to hearts here. What did Jesus gain 
by transferring His title of possession of 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 117 

all things from the name of the Son of God 
to the name of the Son of man ? The only 
thing I have been able to see that Jesus 
has gained by this tremendous transac- 
tion is the rescue of such members of the 
human family as will accept willingly the 
Atonement and thereby become joint-heirs 
with Himself in everlasting fellowship. 
Dear friend, if He does not get you He 
will have that much less profit on His in- 
vestment. And you, how poor you will be! 

I am not sure, dear friends, if the great- 
ness and magnificence of this would break 
in upon us in its fullness, but that every 
one of us would go out from this place to 
dispose of everything we own in this world, 
and before night get it invested in some- 
thing that would accrue in profits over 
there. One great reason why our invest- 
ments for heaven are so puny is because 
the vision of these things does not break 
in upon our hearts. 

People have come back from the wes- 
tern states and told about the fortunes to 
be won out there, and those who have heard 
them have sold all they had and rushed out 



118 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

there, to live, perhaps, in a dugout for 
years, in order to be wealthy in their old 
age. And nobody has called them fools 
either. But here we are in a world trem- 
bling on the verge of collapse, living a life 
liable to be cut off at any time, not knowing 
what day our stock here will be cut down 
to ciphers, and yet hesitating to make in- 
vestments in the kingdom that cannot be 
shaken. 

Let us be awake to our interests as joint- 
heirs with Jesus Christ, and make all our 
investments in consideration of that glori- 
ous privilege. 



CHAPTER V. 

WORLD GOVERNMENT IN THE 
INTERIM 

From previous lectures we have seen 
that Lucifer, first provincial governor of 
the earth, has incapacitated himself for 
world government; that Adam, second 
provincial governor, failed, through yield- 
ing to Satan's temptation, to qualify for 
office; and that Jesus Christ, though quali- 
fied as Adam's successor, has not, for reas- 
ons hidden in His own counsels, seen fit as 
yet to take over the political rule of the 
world. 

Under these circumstances it is impor- 
tant to know how the world is ruled in the 
interim. The interim, as spoken of here, re- 
fers to the time from Adam's fall to the time 
when Jesus Christ will actually take over the 
political rule of the world. 



120 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Man the Visible Agent 

During the interim referred to, in va- 
rious ways and changing dispensations, 
man is the visible agent of government 
upon the earth. However, Satan, by virtue 
of his victory over man seems generally 
to rule the world during this period, and 
is called in Scripture the " prince of this 
world." He has his way in the govern- 
ment only by having his way with man. 
The oft-repeated history seems to be that 
God appoints men or nations as rulers of 
the world, and then Satan corrupts them, 
and through them dominates the world. 

This interim is divided into distinct pe- 
riods, known as ages or dispensations. 
The chart in front of book will help us in 
discriminating between these ages and will 
enable one to follow the course of history 
and prophecy through them. The chart is 
virtually a bird's-eye view of the whole 
Bible from its earliest historical reference 
to its farthest prophetic forecast. The 
drawing has been made mainly for the un- 
folding of the plan of God's grace, rather 
than to show the political periods of histo- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 121 

ry, so it is not exactly adapted to the sub- 
ject for which I am using it here, but it 
can be made to serve as a help. 

The Patriarchal Age 

After the fall, and until the flood, a pe- 
riod of 1656 years, and some time after- 
ward, government seems to have been of 
the patriarchal order. Under this system 
the inhabitants of earth were divided up 
into small groups, of one or more families 
each, the oldest man of each group being 
ruler of it. Often on the occasion of the 
death of the patriarch, who might be fa- 
ther,, grand-father or more ancient ances- 
tor of all the men in the group, the sons, 
now themselves heads of considerable fami- 
lies, would divide the original group into 
as many groups, so that the size of these 
various settlements or colonies was never 
large. The oldest man in each group ad- 
ministered the law and was looked up to as 
the judge to settle all disputes that might 
arise between the members of his partic- 
ular group. 

While sometimes neighboring groups 



122 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

may have arranged with each other for 
purposes of war and defense, as in the 
case of Abram, Aner, Eschol and Mamre, 
in the latter part of this period (Gen. 15:- 
13-24), yet there seems never to have oc- 
curred to man, before the days of Nimrod, 
any extensive idea of federating the pa- 
triarchal groups. 

The Age of Great Nations 

The patriarchal method of government 
seems to have obtained all through the pe- 
riod previous to the flood, and for some 
time after it, probably most of the remain- 
der of the life of Noah. But with the com- 
ing on the stage of history of a man 
named Nimrod, a great grand-son of Noah, 
as we learn from the tenth chapter of Gen- 
esis, a new form of government is mani- 
fested. Nimrod seems to have been the 
moving spirit in the building of the tower 
of Babel and the city in connection there- 
with, the animating thought of which was, 
"Let us make us a name, lest we be scat- 
tered abroad upon the face of the whole 
earth," (Gen. 11:4) with a view to central- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 123 

izing the government under one head. 

God frustrated this ultra-federated form 
ofi government before it (had proceeded 
very far, but ever since that time it has 
been the ideal of world rulers to federate 
the world under one government. 

As a result of God's scattering the peo- 
ple from Babel, the world was divided in- 
to certain groups that eventually grew in- 
to natious, of which the most ancient were 
Babylon, Assyria and Egypt. Besides 
these greater nations, there were smaller 
ones, such as the seven that inhabited the 
land of Canaan later. 

The patriarchal form of government 
seems to have existed for a time synchron- 
ously in all gradations, from the simple 
patriarchal life of Abraham to the corpo- 
rate city kingdom of Sodom and other cit- 
ies of the plain, up to the well-developed 
and complex national form represented by 
Chedorlaomer and his allies, all of whom 
are described in the same chapter of Gen- 
esis, (the 14th). 

The Israelitish Age 

When God called Israel out of Egypt, in 



124 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

the fifteenth century B. C, gave them na- 
tional life and set before them a national 
program a new era was inaugurated. This 
program was first to exterminate the seven 
nations then inhabiting the land of Canaan, 
who had sunk to a depth of moral degra- 
dation that made reformation impossible, 
after w T hich it seems to have been God's 
plan for them to bring all other nations 
into tributary relation to Israel. But 
since they failed to fully carry out the 
first number of this national program, we 
do not know exactly what was the extent of 
God's design that they should subdue the 
neighboring nations. It is likely, however, 
had they fully performed God's bidding, 
iihey would have subjugated all nations 
and brought the entire world under one 
great theocracy. Israel's failure in this re- 
gard has not frustrated God's plan, only 
postponed its manifestation. 

From the theocratic form of government, 
which lasted about 450 years, Israel changed 
to a kingdom about 1,000 B. G., under which 
form of government they continued about 
400 years, dividing, after Solomon's reign, 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 125 

into two nations. The northern nation, the ten 
tribes, lost out of God's plan for a season 
and are now unidentified among the other 
nations, but the southern kingdom, known as 
Judah, over which the heirs of David ruled, 
retained the scepter until about 586 B. C. 
It seems that, had this kingdom at any time 
lined up with God's plan, they might have 
been favored with success in carrying out 
the original program for Israel. Occasional 
revivals of righteousness under good kings 
were soon neutralized by evil kings, and fin- 
ally, in the days of Zedekiah's reign, God de- 
liberately took the scepter of world pow- 
er out of the hands of Judah and gave it to 
Nebuchadnezzar, the representative Gentile 
king. 

It will be instructive to examine some pas- 
sages of Scripture in this connection. In the 
days of Zedekiah, God gave a message 
through Ezekiel (Ezek. 21:25-27) as follows: 
"And thou profane, wicked prince of Israel, 
whose day is come, when iniquity shall have 
an end, Thus saith the Lord God; Remove 
the diadem, and take off the crown: this 
shall not be the same : exalt him that is low, 



126 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

and abase him that is high. I will overturn, 
overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no 
more, until He come whose right is is; and I 
will give it Him." Zedekiah was the last heir 
of David who was king in Jerusalem- He was 
carried to Babylon, and died there. With 
these words God called a halt in the career 
of Judah's national life, and they have nev- 
er had a king of their own since, and thy 
will not until in the words of the text, u He,' ? 
(Jesus Christ in His glory) " comes, Whose 
right it is." 

In accord with this prophecy of Ezekiel, 
who was with the captives at the river Che- 
bar, in the dominions of Babylon, Jeremiah, 
who was prophet at the same time in Jerusa- 
lem, as recorded in the 27th chapter of his 
prophecy, was told to take yokes and to give 
them to the ambassadors of the different na- 
tions that came down to visit Zedekiah, with 
instructions to take these yokes back to 
their kings with this message: "Thus shall 
ye say unto your masters; I have made the 
earth, the man and the beast that are upon 
the ground, by My great power and by My 
outstretched arm, and have given it unto 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 127 

whom it seemed meet unto Me. And now have 
I given all these lands into the hand of Ne- 
buchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My ser- 
vant; and the beasts of the field have I given 
him also to serve him. And all nations shall 
serve him, and his son, and his son's son, un- 
til the very time of his land come: and then 
many nations and great kings shall serve 
themselves of him." 

Lest the kingdom of Judah might not 
think itself included in this sweeping order, 
a special message is sent to Zedekiah in vs. 
12: "I spake also to Zedekiah king of Judah 
according to all these w r ords, saying, Bring 
your necks under the yoke of the king of 
Babylon, and serve him and his people, and 
live." At this time the scepter .... of world 
power was wrested from David's heirs and 
given to Nebuchadnezzar, but not, be it 
noted, without a promise that it would be 
returned to David's great Heir, Jesus Christ 
when He comes in His glory. 

"The Times of the Gentiles" 

The subjugation of Judah to Babylon, 
about 586 B. C, marks the beginning of that 



128 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

period of time in which the Gentiles shall 
have rule of the Government of the world, 
called in Bible language, "The times of the 
Gentiles." 

This period of time known as "the times 
of the Gentiles," began, as we have seen, 
when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took 
Zedekiah, king of Jerusalem, captive, and 
will continue until Jesus Christ comes in the 
glory to take over the government of the 
earth, which He will do by coming first as 
King of the Jews, then of all Israel, and 
finally of all nations. While the date of the 
beginning of "the times of the Gentiles" is 
plainly marked in history, and the event that 
will close it is well foretold in prophecy, the 
date of its close is not stated in Scripture, 
nor the years these "times" will continue. 
We know, how T ever, the general course histo- 
ry will pursue in these "times" from the 
forecast of history portrayed in Nebuchad- 
nezzar's dream of the image, a drawing of 
which we give in this connection. Prom this 
it will be seen that this period of time is di- 
vided into four epochs answering to the four 
metals in the image. We are not dependent 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 



129 



Jifif iV*?**J> >M? 




r*gfe*r 



130 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

upon any man's word for this interpretation, 
for Daniel, the prophet of the Lord, who was 
at Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar had this 
dream, was called in to interpret it. Accord- 
ing to his inspired interpretation there will 
be, from Nebuchadnezzar to the beginning 
of Christ's earthly rule, four successive 
world empires, all of them Gentile in char- 
acter. 

The first of these four Gentile world em- 
pires, represented by the gold, was Babylon, 
continuing as dominating world power until 
536 B. C, when Medo-Persia, represented 
by the silver, displaced Babylon as world 
ruler and continued in power in the neigh- 
borhood of 200 years. Following Medo-Per- 
sia came the third kingdom, Greece, repre- 
sented by the brass, which continued in pow- 
er some 300 years. Then followed the 
" fourth kingdom. . . .strong as iron," readi- 
ly recognized as Rome, which as yet has 
never been superseded. In one form or an- 
other Rome has continued the ruling politi- 
cal power of the civilized world ever since, 
and will continue, as stated before, until 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 131 

Jesus Christ comes to set up the Millennial 
kingdom. 

Rome's Rise, Fall and Restoration 

The continuance of Rome in the place of 
world rule has been longer than that of any 
of the three preceding world powers, and 
there have been several variations in the 
form of government under her supervision. 
For these reasons, and in view of the fact 
that it is still, as considered in prophecy, the 
ruling power, it will be well to give a little 
more time to the history of Rome than to the 
other kingdoms. 

Rome became the dominating world power 
in the year 31 B. C, as a result of the naval 
victory at Actium of her fleet over that of 
Grecianized Egypt, the most powerful of the 
four divisions into which Greece had fallen 
after the death of Alexander. That year its 
government changed from the republican 
form to the imperial, and it continued a 
strong unified government during New Tes- 
tament times, and until some time afterward. 
Dividing into two parts in 395 A. D., the 
western division is considered as falling in 



132 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

476 A. D. and the eastern as continuing until 
1453 A. D. But prophecy considers Rome as 
continuing until Jesus sets up the Millennial 
kingdom. 

We cannot expect in prophecy to find all 
these details worked out, for Bible prophecy, 
like Bible history, deals only with those 
events that concern the earthly affairs of 
God's earthly people, Israel. When Israel 
is prominent, then prophecy is vocal; but 
when Israel is hidden, prophecy is silent. 

The Roman Empire and the Christian 
church come into history almost simultane- 
ously. Up to Pentecost, the date of the 
church's official beginning, the Jewish na- 
tion was prominent in the affairs of the 
world, but, after that event, they drop out 
of prominence in the work of God on earth, 
and, with the destruction of Jerusalem, their 
capital city, in 70 A. D., they become but a 
minor factor in history, and will continue so 
until the church is completed and taken out 
of the w r orld. As we might expect, therefore, 
Bible history and prophecy have much to 
say about the Jewish nation and general 
world conditions during the 33 years from 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 133 

the birth of Christ to Pentecost, and some 
during the 40 years following until the 
destruction of Jerusalem. We cannot ex- 
pect, therefore, to find much, if anything, of 
the history of the Roman Empire forecast in 
prophecy from the early days of the church 
until God begins the work of gathering His 
ancient people back to their land. To recog- 
nize this is important. 

New Testament history closes with Rome 
a powerful world government under one em- 
peror. Prophecy finds it in the last days of 
this dispensation again a powerful govern- 
ment under ten federated kings, as indicat- 
ed by the ten toes of the image. The period 
of weakening and scattering of Rome's do- 
minions among many nations does not ap- 
pear in prophecy, as that time falls in what 
may be termed the prophetic gap, concerning 
which prophecy is silent. 

Students of prophecy have long seen that, 
before the Millennial reign of Christ begins 
upon earth, Rome would be restored in a 
modified form. It is interesting to note how 
the ancient boundaries of the Roman Empire 
are being restored by the nations that are 



134 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

her natural successors. In the recent war 
the nations of Europe known as the allies, 
and those in sympathy with them, aside 
from Russia, which became an inoperative 
factor after the first two years, were all in 
the territory of the Roman Empire as it 
stood at the close of the New Testament. It 
is noticeable, also, how these nations had 
been widening their borders, even before the 
war in regions formerly included in Rome's 
dominions at that time. France and Spain had 
taken control of Morocco, France of 
Algiers, Italy had seized Tripoli, and Eng- 
land exercised a protectorate over Egypt, 
thus bringing all that part of North Africa 
that once belonged to Rome under allied con- 
trol. During the war England has extended 
her influence over Palestine and Syria and 
dominates the Euphrates valley. The indi- 
cations are that Turkey will be driven out- 
side the borders of the ancient Roman Em- 
pire. As the final stroke in restoring the 
borders of ancient Rome the war closes with 
Germany withdrawing to the eastern bank 
of the Rhine river, thus restoring the border 
in western Europe. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 135 

Within the restored borders of the Soman 
Empire, as thus set forth, we may reasonably 
look for the formation of the ten federated 
kingdoms that will constitute the last form 
of the fourth kingdom of the image with its 
feet and toes part of iron and part of clay. 
In fact the proposed " league of nations" 
may be the nucleus of that federation. 

Relation of Church to Government 

In this connection it will be profitable to 
consider what relation the church has to the 
governments in this interim. Many false 
conclusions are reached by taking Old Testa- 
ment texts and characters as models. In 
that dispensation religious and political 
things were united. Israel was the kingdom 
of heaven upon the earth, the forerunner of 
the kingdom of heaven as it will be set up 
on earth in the Millennium. But, from the 
taking over of the government by the Gen- 
tiles, or more specifically, from the time of 
the establishing of the church, until the res- 
toration to Israel under Jesus Christ as 
King, politics and church are distinct. To< 
be sure the laws of civilized lands allow 



136 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

church members, as individuals, to exercise 
their right of franchise in connection with 
the government, but the church as an organ- 
ization is entirely out of place when it as- 
sumes political power, and a good many are 
now questioning the wisdom of individual 
Christians taking part in the government. 
What the church as an organization taking 
over the government of the world will do 
has been demonstrated in the effect on his- 
tory when the Roman Church assumed to set 
up kings of Europe and depose them at will. 
The dark ages resulted, for the church 
stepped aside from her work of being the 
light of the world to being the governor of 
the powers of the darkness of this world. 

The Scriptures admonish Christians to be 
in subjection to the powers that be, but I 
have read the Bible in vain to find a place 
where we are told to manage the powers that 
be. The government is ordained of God, 
and we resist it at our peril. The powers 
that be are ordained of God, evem though 
Satan has much to do with them, and we are 
to be subject to them. Of course we may ex- 
pect that worldly governments will some 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 137 

times make laws that people cannot fully 
keep and truly obey God in so doing. But 
subjection to the powers that be demands 
that we do not resist these ordinances even 
though refusing to do wrong. When asked 
by an ungodly government, in whose do- 
mains we may for a season be sojourners, to 
do what we conceive to be contrary to what 
God requires, we can positively declare 
our position and patiently submit to the pun- 
ishment they deem best to inflict. That is 
being in subjection to the powers that be, 
and at the same time being obedient to God. 
But there is no warrant for Christians band- 
ing themselves together to resist an iniqui- 
tous law. Many evil laws have been repeal- 
ed as a result of Christians patiently suffer- 
ing under them. 

We have already mentioned in a previous 
chapter how the position of David under 
Saul, illustrates the position of Christ in this 
dispensation. Satan, though disowned, is 
not yet dethroned; Jesus though anointed, 
is not yet inaugurated. In like manner the 
position of David's followers is illustrative 
of the position of Christians in this interim. 



138 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

David though anointed king to succeed Saul, 
was in subjection to the laws of Saul 
as long as the latter was in office. He could 
not always be at peace with him, and had to 
flee from his wrath at times, but he never 
took up arms to resist anything that Saul 
was doing. Although at times urged by his 
followers to slay Saul, and twice excellent 
opportunities offered for him to do so, David 
rstrained his people and said: " Destroy him 
not: for who can stretch forth his hand 
against the Lord's anointed, and be guilt- 
less?. . . .the Lord shall smite him; or his day 
shall come to die, or he shall descend into 
battle, and perish. The Lord forbid that I 
should stretch forth mine hand against the 
Lord's anointed." This illustrates the Chris- 
tian's attitude toward ungodly rulers. 

David's headquarters was the cave of 
Adullam. Here there were gathered to him 
" every one that was in distress, and every 
one that was in debt, and every one that was 
discontented," a remarkable picture of the 
kind of people that come to Jesus. The com- 
pany that is with Jesus, like that company 
in the cave of Adullam, is a hidden group, 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 139 

little thought of by the world in its great 
schemes and little accounted of by the nomi- 
nal church in its supposedly great plans for 
world betterment. Saul and his kingdom 
plans were of little interest to David and his 
men. It is said of David that he made him- 
self a captain over these men who came to 
him. While they had no place under Saul 
any more, David had them in training for the 
time when the kingdom should be his. So 
Christians are often charged with having lit- 
tle interest in politics, but they are training 
with Jesus for the time when, in the Millen- 
nial kingdom they shall reign with Him. 

Finally Saul fell in a battle with which 
David and His followers had nothing to do. 
Then, when Saul was dead, and the news 
was brought to David, he and his followers 
took over the government. In like manner, 
after the battle of Armageddon, when the 
governors of this world shall have hopeless- 
ly fallen out with each other, Jesus and His 
people will take over the government and 
rule with Him in righteousness. 

We speak slightingly of Satan at our peril, 
not because of his character, but because of 



140 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

his office. To speak against him is to speak 
against his office. David never ridiculed 
Saul, but treated him as appointed of Grod 
for the time being. It is recorded of Michael 
the archangel, that when he was contending 
with the devil, he disputed about the body 
of Moses, ( Jude 9) he durst not bring against 
him a railing accusation, but said, "The 
Lord rebuke thee." It is noticeable that 
Jesus in His temptation, while resisting 
Satan, neither ridiculed him nor brought 
against him any railing accusation. The 
same is true of what the apostles say about 
him. Speaking against dignities is discour- 
aged by the Bible. But we have fallen on 
times when men despise dignities. Who has 
not seen the president, or some other public 
official, pictured in silly cartoons and made 
an object of ridicule? It is not becoming to 
a Christian to thus make light of public offi- 
cials. They hold their office by appointment 
of God and are to be accordingly honored. 

The Church Not the Kingdom 

- One of the most common errors in the in- 
terpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's image is 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 141 

that the church has taken the place of the 
kingdoms represented by the image. It has 
not done so; it was not intended to do so; it 
is something entirely different. This error 
comes from the supposition that, since the 
stone striking the image represents the 
kingdom that God will set up on the earth 
to take the place of these and that Christ will 
be the Head of that kingdom, it must repre- 
sent the time when He came into the world 
and set up the church. But an event symbol- 
ized by something on the feet of the image 
cannot possibly be the church; for the church 
was set up in the early days of the Roman 
Empire, while the stone strikes in the latter 
days of the Empire, after it is restored to a 
tenfold form. 

This interpretation is to blame for confu- 
sion about the relation of the Christian to the 
governments of the world. If the stone is 
the church, the church is greatly to be feared 
by the governments of the world for it is des- 
tined to break them in pieces. But, as we 
have before shown, the church has no com- 
mission to interfere with the governments of 
the world, but is to pursue its work of evan- 



142 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

gelizing the people of all nations in submis- 
sion to the laws of the various nations in 
whose domains it must of necessity sojourn. 
The kingdom of the church, if the term may 
be used of the church in any way, is spiritual 
and heavenly, and its work is to gather sub- 
jects for that heavenly kingdom from among 
all nations, not to dominate or conquer and 
rule any nation of the earth. 

The Decline of Gentile Power 

The government of the world in the 
' ' times of the Gentiles" deteriorates from its 
beginning to its close. It began with gold, 
and it will end with clay. How contrary to 
human ideals this is! The man of the world 
is committed to the evolutionary idea of gov- 
ernment: that it moves from the lower form 
of the monarchy to the higher form of the 
republic. That is what men of the w T orld in- 
variably tell us right along. But it is safe to 
rely on the vision of the prophet whatever 
be the opinion of men. 

It is well to observe, however, that the 
form of government now in the world is es- 
pecially adapted to further the purposes of 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 143 

God in the church. No other form of gov- 
ernment is so adapted to the spread of the 
Gospel to all nations as the kind that has 
been in the ascendency during the past centu- 
ry. 

Universal suffrage is advocated by many 
as being the eventual righting of all wrongs, 
but it ought to be manifest to any one that 
a form of government in which the majority 
has the rule must be liable to gross ills so 
long as the majority of hearts are unregen- 
erate. Such a method may result in a gov- 
ernment that pleases the majority of the 
people, but it can hardly make for perfect 
righteousness in the earth. The image has 
faithfully portrayed in advance the absolute 
monarchy, the dual monarchy, the represent- 
ative monarchy and the republic; and, if we 
mistake not, there lies ahead in the remain- 
ing feet and toes the forecast of socialism 
and anarchy. The course of the Gentile em- 
pire must run its course until man at his best 
proves unable to govern himself, then God 
will take over the government and give it to 
the man Christ Jesus, Who, as man, has 
proven His right to rule. He as King of the 



144 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Jews, under which title He was crucified, 
will demonstrate His ability to rule the 
whole world in righteousness, in which rule 
His bride, the true church, will be associated. 

The Rule of Angel Princes 

Before leaving this subject it may be well 
to study a little further how Satan manipu- 
lates governmental affairs on the earth. In 
the tenth chapter of Daniel the prophet de- 
scribes a remarkable experience of his own. 
He tells us, "I Daniel was mourning three 
full weeks," evidently engaged in a long and 
fervent season of prayer. At the end of the 
period of twenty-one days he saw a vision in 
which he was granted the privilege of seeing 
into the operations of the invisible world. 
An angelic presence appeared to him and told 
him the reason for the long delay to the an- 
swer to his prayer. The angel says, "From 
the first day that thou didst set thine heart 
to understand, and to chasten thyself before 
thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come 
for thy words." As a reason why he had no 
response before, this angel tells him, "The 
prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 145 

me one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one 
of the chief princes, came to help me; and I 
remained there with the kings of Persia." 
Or, as the margin of the Revised Version 
reads, "I was not needed." 

Now it is easy to see that this " prince of 
Persia" was not Cyrus or Darius, who were 
kings of Persia, for they are spoken of sepa- 
rately as " kings of Persia;" but it was some 
invisible angel prince, evidently an evil angel 
operating under Satan as prince of the 
world, trying to manipulate the affairs of 
the Persian Empire, Cyrus, along with 
others, not being conscious of the fact. That 
these evil angel princes do not always have 
their way is evident from the issues in this 
case. Daniel, we may suppose, was at this 
time praying that Cyrus would make a de- 
cree that the Jews might return to their 
land, as Daniel, in the previous chapter, tells 
us he had found from the prophecies of Jere- 
miah would be done. But the only victory 
over them is through prayer along lines of 
Bible promise. 

From this experience of Daniel it may be 
supposed that all the nations of the world 



146 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

have their ruling angels. The angel who 
talked with Daniel said, ' ' There is none that 
holdeth with me in these things, but Michael 
your prince," that is the prince of the nation 
of Israel, as we find from Dan. 12 : 1. From 
this it seems probable that the dominating 
angels of the nations are all under the con- 
trol of Satan, except the nation of Israel. 
This might be carried much further no 
doubt, and we might find the reason for 
many things done by secret societies, politi- 
cal parties, corporations and the like that 
can be accounted for from the fact that Sa- 
tan has set an angel prince over these va- 
rious organizations. 

All things considered the government of 
the world is in a very complex state during 
the period we have designated as the interim. 



CHAPTER VI 
JESUS CHRIST'S PROCLAMATION . . 
OF PEACE 

In our study thus far we have covered 
ground preparatory to the subject of this 
lecture. We have seen the work of God as 
Creator and Maker of the earth; Lucifer the 
first provincial governor and his error and 
downfall; Adam, second provincial governor 
and his failure to qualify and consequent 
downfall; Jesus Christ, third Provincial 
Governor, taking the lowly place of Adam's 
heir, qualifying for Governor and King. 

Then we took up the government of the 
world in the interim; how it is being govern- 
ed from the fall of Adam to the time when 
Jesus Christ personally takes over the gov- 
ernment. 

Now we will consider the process by which 
Christ takes over the government, under the 
subject " Jesus Christ's Proclamation of 
Peace. " 



148 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Proof of Christ's Governorship 

Jesus Christ is duly qualified for the posi- 
tion of world governor. We have His own 
words for this in Matthew 28:18, where He 
tells His disciples, "All power is given unto 
Me in heaven and in earth." The word 
"power" here means governmental power, 
authority. In other words Jesus tells the 
disciples that the government of heaven and 
earth is turned over to Him. 

This claim is borne out by 1 Corinthians 
15:27, "For He hath put all things under His 
feet." That is, God has put all things under 
Jesus' feet. The same thought is given in 
Ephesians 1 :21, where it says God has set 
Christ "far above all principality, and 
might, and dominion, and every name that is 
named, not only in this world, but also in 
that which is to come : and hath put all things 
under His feet." 

Reason for Apparent Delay 

When we remember that it is almost 1900 
years since Jesus declared that all power in 
heaven and earth was committed to Him, it 
is natural for the question to arise why there 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 149 

is not more manifestation of His government 
on the earth. This question was anticipated 
by the Holy Ghost, Who tells us in II Peter 
3:8-9 "Be not ignorant of this one thing, that 
one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day. The Lord 
is not slack concerning His promise, as some 
men count slackness; but is longsuffering to 
u sward, not willing that any should perish, 
but that all should come to repentance." 

Jesus said in the parable of the nobleman 
going into a far country, that he was going to 
receive a kingdom, after which He would 
return. While He has received the kingdom, 
that is the authority to set it up, He has not 
yet returned to take over the world govern- 
ment, put down the misrule and subdue its 
people; but He has the power to do so, when 
He has done what preliminary work He de- 
sires to do. 

After telling His disciples that all power 
was given unto Him in heaven and earth, He 
then proceeds to give them His program of 
preliminary work: "Go ye therefore, and 
teach all nations." That means, because the 
government of the world was given to Him, 



150 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Jesus commands His disciples to teach all 
nations. And he tells them what to teach 
them: they are to "baptize" them "in" (or 
"into," as the R. V.) "the name of the Fa- 
ther, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Their 
teaching was to be doctrinal, and the heart 
of it was the doctrine of the Triune God. 

Until Jesus has offered to the world an op- 
portunity to have peace by accepting His 
atoning work as the ground of forgiveness, 
and thereby secure a release from the neces- 
sary punishment that they must merit under 
the law, He is not going to enforce His 
authority. He is consenting for a season to 
let man still run the world, under Satan's de- 
lusion. He is willing to appear to have fail- 
ed in the accomplishment of what He came 
to do. Though He was born King, anointed 
King proclaimed his platform as King, and 
demonstrated His power as King, yet, be- 
cause this world was not ready to sub- 
mit to His authority, He submitted to their 
authority, was tried in their courts, and, 
when adjudged a traitor, suffered the penal- 
tv thev inflicted. The world said He was 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 151 

not fit to be governor of the world; the Jews 
said, "We have no king but Caesar," and on 
their instigation the Romans crucified Him. 

But the case of Jesus Christ's ability and 
qualifications to rule this world's govern- 
ment was referred to a higher court, the 
court of heaven, as mentioned in a previous 
lecture, and as a result all authority was 
given Him in heaven and earth. God sent 
the resurrection angel to turn the key in the 
prison of death, and He came forth the 
authorized appointee of God to this world's 
governorship, with power to take over the 
government at any time. But as stated 
before, He has not yet seen fit to enforce His 
rule. 

The Method of Grace 

While Christ is the lawful Governor of the 
world, it has pleased Him for a season to deal 
with the world by grace instead of by law. 
The prophet said that He would do thisr 
" Behold My servant, Whom I uphold; Mine 
Elect, in Whom My soul delighteth; I have 
put My Spirit upon Him: He shall bring 
forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not 



152 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be 
heard in the street. A bruised reed shall He 
not break, and the smoking flax shall He 
not quench: He shall bring forth judgment 
unto truth." Isaiah 42:1-3. 

These things that the prophet states He 
will not do show how His method is differ- 
ent than the method one would expect to be 
used by a conqueror. No blare of trumpets 
was to herald His accession to the place of 
victory; no crying or shouting or tumult as 
He began His work. The bruised reed and 
smoking flax are symbols. When Jesus was 
mocked by the soldiers at the time of His 
trial they put a reed, instead of a scepter, 
into His hand in ridicule of His testimony 
that He was the King of the Jews. The 
"bruised reed, here spoken of, is a symbol of 
the government of the world in the hands of 
men. Jesus will not break the bruised reed, 
that is He will not interfere with the poli- 
tics of the world during the period of His 
method of grace. Smoking flax is a symbol 
of destruction working in the moral fabric of 
this world that threatens its destruction. 
Contrary to the theories of the modern re- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 153 

formers, Jesus will not stop the process of 
evil in the world by any drastic method 
while He is making His offer of salvation 
by grace. To force men to be good by law 
would defeat His purpose of calling out an 
election that are selected on the basis of who- 
soever will. Law and order are in the hands 
of proper governmental authorities ordained 
of God for that very purpose ; but Christ and 
His church are set apart for the proclama- 
tion of the Gospel. 

When this passage is quoted in the New 
Testament, (Matthew 12:17-20), the Holy 
Ghost added a word. There is no indication 
in this passage as given in Isaiah but that 
He is going to proceed to the different stages 
of His work successively; but in Matthew 
the HoJy Ghost indicates that there is going 
to be an interval between the stages of His 
work. Notice Matthew 12:20. "A bruised 
reed shall He not break, and smoking flax 
shall he not quench TILL He send forth 
judgment unto victory." Notice the differ- 
ence indicated by that word "TILL." An 
interval is there. That is, He will not break 
the reed nor quench the smoking flax TILL 



154 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

He sends forth judgment unto victory, and 
then He will break the bruised reed and 
quench the smoking flax. Then a scepter of 
righteousness will be the scepter of His king- 
dom, and there will be no more smoking flax, 
for He will extinguish it. 

But it is His policy, for the time being, 
neither to break that bruised reed, nor 
quench that smoking flax. He is going to 
break it eventually, but not until He " sends 
forth judgment unto victory." In that pe- 
riod marked on the chart as the church age, 
the period beginning when Jesus handed the 
Gospel over to the Apostles, and ending 
when He sees fit to take over the government, 
at the beginning of the Millennium, He is 
leaving the government of the world in the 
hands of men. It is being ruled by a bruis- 
ed reed, but He is not ready to knock that 
reed out of the human hand and take over 
the government yet. He is going to let it go 
on like it is. And evil is at work in the 
world in a multitude of forms, political and 
otherwise, until it looks as though the very 
fabric of human society were going to be 
consumed, and yet He is not interfering with 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 155 

it by legal processes. He is dealing with hu- 
manity by the persuasive method. 

The Present Duty of the Church 

I am thinking that this attitude of the 
Lord indicates the attitude His followers 
should have in the world; that is, as children 
of God, it is not our business to try to take 
the bruised reed of world power out of the 
hand of the present rulers, nor is it our bus- 
iness to combat vice by legal processes. In 
saying this I am not asking that others shall 
conform to my belief, but I am just giving 
my testimony. I am saying things concern- 
ing which I am satisfied myself, but I am 
not disposed to argue others into my views. 
If I have arrived at this conclusion by Bible 
study and the leading of the Holy Ghost, the 
same means are available for others to see 
the same things- 

I believe that it is the design of God that 
His people, of this dispensation, the true 
church, should be thoroughly international 
in their relationship to the nations of this 
world. International is not exactly the word 
that conveys what I mean; perhaps un-na- 



156 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

tional would express it better — that is, that 
the people of God should be of such a char- 
acter that they are equally at home under 
any government in the world, and also equa- 
ly away from home. I believe also that they 
should be thoroughly non-partisan. The fact 
that a certain political party is or is not in 
power should not concern them. They 
should not divert precious hours from their 
spiritual mission in trying to get some party 
of their choice into power, nor disturb their 
position as messengers to all men by antago- 
nizing all parties but one. 

I believe it is the purpose of Grod that His 
chosen messengers should be of such a harm- 
less character that they can move as His am- 
bassadors in every circle of the world with 
equal freedom. There should be such an al- 
legiance to the mission that God has called 
them to, and such continuance of employment 
in it, that these things are outside the circle 
of their concern. 

If the church should succeed in grasping 
the scepter of world power now they 
would find that they had but a bruised reed 
in their hands that they must relinquish 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 157 

when Jesus comes to put them in their pro- 
per place. The heavenly citizenship of the 
true Christian should be such a real and tan- 
gible thing that it dominates all his thinking. 
He is not to attempt to improve these fail- 
ing institutions of the world, but is moving 
among all the peoples of the earth with the 
proclamation of peace through the blood of 
the cross. 

It is remarkable, too, that it is said of 
Jesus that He would not, for the time being, 
quench the smoking flax — the more remark- 
able when we consider how the organized 
church has it generally settled that Chris- 
tians should endeavor to suppress the evils 
all around them, that they should labor 
strenuously and appoint committees, to 
attempt to get drastic laws passed to sup- 
press various forms of vice, that we should 
form ourselves into leagues and associ- 
ations and join anything that has as its 
avowed object the doing away with the liquor 
traffic, the punishment of transgressors and 
the suppression of evil in its various forms. 

While the church should discipline its mem- 
bers who are guilty of moral evil, and while 



158 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

the individual Christian should conduct him- 
self in the strictest morality, I am far from 
satisfied that it is the business of the church 
to suppress immorality in sinners of the 
world. For could we succeed in suppressing 
the outward sin, we would not save them; 
but if we, by the offer of salvation through 
faith in the Blood, save them, the moral evil 
will be most effectively dealt with of any way 
we can possibly devise. The church is not in 
the world to improve its good works, but to 
preach salvation by faith in the finished work 
of Jesus Christ. To improve a man's morals 
without saving him may defeat the purpose 
of the Gospel of free grace. 

There is a definite order in Christ's deal- 
ing with the human race. Eventually He is 
going to drive evil out of the earth as well as 
heaven, but this is not the place in the pro- 
gram when He is doing that. The present age 
is the time in which He is offering to all men, 
regardless of moral condition, nationality, 
color, education, political party or anything, 
salvation through faith in the blood of His 
cross and the church as His mystical body 
should be wholly occupied therein. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 159 

The Church's Duty Illustrated 

The situation is this: The earth is a rebel- 
lious province of the universe. The rebel- 
lion must be crushed, even at the cost of the 
inhabitants. Jesus Christ has been appointed 
to take over the government of the world 
province with authority to use any means 
necessary to accomplish its subjection, and 
the resources of heaven and earth are placed 
at His disposal to do it. This rebellion can 
be crushed only by force, and force Jesus 
Christ is prepared to use. But, before He be- 
gins the bombardment, so to speak, He is 
sending his messengers with terms of peace, 
commissioned to personally offer every per- 
son immunity from punishment if they will 
confess their rebellion and take Jesus Christ's 
sacrifice on the cross as their substitute in 
punishment. The entire program of God 
Avaits on the accomplishment of the work of 
these ambassadors. For them to stop to 
patch up the weak governments of earth is 
a waste of precious time and a diversion of 
their means from its proper channel. Those 
ordained of God for government do well to 
attend to the business assigned them, but 



160 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

that is not the business of God's ambassadors. 
They can move among all nations, breaking 
no good laws, interfering with no govern- 
ment in power. In fact these governments 
are expected to facilitate their movements 
and the accomplishment of their mission. 
Their tranquility is furthered by the work 
of God's ambassadors of peace. They will 
answer to God for everything they do to hin- 
der the work of His sent messengers, for 
everything is bound to work together for 
good to them that love God and are called 
according to His purpose. 

Suppose a missionary going to Africa 
should discover that two rival native kings 
were contending for the supremacy in the ter- 
ritory in which he worked. He could not 
think of taking the side of either of th<\se 
kings. The success of his work would de- 
pend on his taking a position entirely out- 
side of the controversy. The attempt of eith- 
er party to obtain even his sanction should 
be met with the Gospel message as the 
means of individual salvation that removes 
the cause of war and enables one to ra- 
ther suffer himself to be defrauded than 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 161 

to prolong strife. When the controversy was 
settled the missionary should conduct him- 
self under the rule of the victorious king in 
such a way that he would not be a lawbreaker. 
If this is true in Africa, it is true in civiliz- 
ed lands also. The missionary is a foreigner 
everywhere, but a foreigner with the stand- 
ing of an ambassador in every nation. Every 
true Christian is primarily a missionary. 

The Prophetic Setting of the Church 

Eeferenee to the passage in Isaiah 42:1-3 
and its use in Matthew 12:18-20, where the 
word "till" has been added by the Holy 
Ghost, raises the question whether all Old 
Testament prophecy is consecutive in fulfill- 
ment, for the word "till" indicates postpone- 
ment of the fulfillment of the ensuing sen- 
tence. This is explained in Ephesians 3:1-6 
which reveals the fact that there is a mystery 
that has been hidden from all past ages, the 
mystery of the church. The passage referred 
to in Isaiah shows no gap in the program of 
its fulfillment, but in Matthew there is a gap 
at the word "till" into which this whole age 



162 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

in which we live, the church age, drops in 
perfect harmony. 

There are other passages in the Old Tes- 
tament like the one in Isaiah 42. The pro- 
phecy of Christ and His mission reads right 
along as though the cradle, the cross and the 
crown were all coming within the limits of 
a natural lifetime. But when we come to 
the New Testament an interval, the length 
of which is purposely left uncertain, is re- 
vealed. The key by which these prophecies 
can be unlocked is in the prophecy of Dan- 
iel's seventy weeks, in Dan. 9: 24-27. Here the 
prophet Daniel is told: "Seventy weeks are 
determined upon thy people and upon thy 
holy city, to finish the transgression, and to 
make an end of sins, and to make reconcilia- 
tion for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 
righteousness, and to seal up the vision and 
prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy." 

The following verses of the prophecy show T 
that the weeks are divided into three distinct 
parts — seven weeks, sixty-two weeks and one 
week, which numbers added together make 
the seventy. These "weeks" it is clear 
from the reading of the whole chapter, are 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 163 

weeks of years. Therefore we are to under- 
stand that 490 years have been set off from 
all other time, during which God will especial- 
ly deal with Israel, accomplishing what is 
outlined in the verse quoted. The division 
into three sections suggests the possibility 
of there being intervals between the sections. 
Whether there is a gap after the first divis- 
ion of seven weeks, or 49 years, need not occu- 
py our attention now, as the event marking 
the end of the second section of 62 weeks, or 
434 years, is plainly told — " After (the) three- 
score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off." 
From this it is evident that the crucifixion 
of Christ occurred after sixty-nine of the 
weeks, or 483 years, had gone into history, 
leaving but one week, or seven years, yet to 
be fulfilled. It is here, between the 69th and 
the 70th weeks, that the mystery " which in 
other ages was not made known unto the sons 
of men" (Eph. 3:5) is thrown in, leaving the 
events prophesied about the 70th week for 
fulfillment after the church has been taken 
out of the world. (The accompanying chart 
will help the reader to understand this). 
In the Old Testament this 70th week, which 



164 



WORLD GOVERNMENT 



1 

i 







IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 165 

is the period of the great tribulation, coming 
between the time the Lord comes for His 
church and the time He returns with it, fol- 
lows immediately after the crucifixion, there 
being no gap whatever between. The events 
prophesied of the 70th week have not yet 
come to pass, for between the 69th and 70th 
weeks the whole church age has been dropped 
in, and is pushing this 70th week before it, 
and will continue to do so as long as the 
church is in the world. But when the church 
is taken out, time will then take up the 70th 
week, and the things prophesied of that week 
will come to pass. 

As before suggested, the 70 weeks serve as 
the key to OJd Testament prophecy from the 
fact that all 0]d Testment prophecy falls due 
within the limits of the seventy weeks. In 
other words, all Old Testament prophecy not 
fulfilled in connection with Christ's first com- 
ing is held over for fulfillment at His second 
coming. From these considerations wc draw 
the conclusion tint no Old Testment prophe- 
cy is literally fulfilled in what we may call 
the " prophetic gap," the time between the 
69th and 70th weeks. It is evident, however, 



166 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

that excellent spiritual applications of many 
prophecies can be made to the church- A good 
rule for the study of Old Testament history, 
as well as of Old Testament prophecy, is that 
what is outward, literal and national to Israel, 
is inward, spiritual and individual to the 
Christian. 

One reason why the church fails to appre- 
hend her duty is that she confuses her duty 
with that of Israel. Questions concerning or- 
dinances, clean and unclean meats, keeping 
the seventh day for Sabbath, the Christian's 
attitude toward war and kindred questions 
would be readily solved w r ere the church to 
disentangle herself from the swaddling bands 
of Judaism, in which she was nursed and 
which served their purpose for a time. A 
careful reading of the New Testament, espe- 
cially of Acts and the Epistles, should con- 
vince the reader of this fact. Now often it 
occurs that the church is asked to do certain 
things on the ground that God's Old Testa- 
ment people did them. The application of the 
above rule should, under the Spirit's enlight- 
enment, help many to see the difference. 

Our kingdom is a spiritual kingdom; our 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 167 

weapons and warfare are spiritual for eon- 
tending with wicked spirits instead of w T ith 
flesh and blood; our temple is a spiritual tem- 
ple, not one of precious metals and costly 
stones; our altar is a spiritual altar; our sac- 
rifices and our ordinances spiritual ordinan- 
ces. 

When it is remembered that the writer's 
views on these subjects would not find agree- 
ment with nine-tenths of the church at 
large it is easy to reject them as contrary to 
the concensus of current Christian opinion. 
But that is no more argument against the cor- 
rectness of these views than is the failure of 
the seventy men at Jerusalem whose business 
was Bible study and Bible writing and the 
adjustment of affairs under the Bible code, 
is an argument against the correctness of the 
testimony of Simeon and Anna that the baby 
Jesus was the Messiah. These deep things 
are hidden from the wise and prudent and 
revealed to babes. 

Your early training, your school education, 
your denominational bias, these things of a 
mental character, may hide things from you 
for a season. It is not my business to make 



268 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

you see them, but to declare the testimony 
and leave it with the Holy Ghost to take it 
home to your hearts when they can receive it. 

Other Scriptures Considered 

Now, let us test other Scriptures to see if 
they also reveal this prophetic gap. Isaiah 
9:6-7 is a prophetic passage about Jesus 
Christ. "For unto us a Child is born." This 
doubtless refers to the child Jesus. "Unto 
us a Son is given." "Son" there has the 
meaning of heir. "And the government 
shall be upon His shoulder." Jesus did not 
exercise the office of governor when here in 
His humiliation. A man is told of in Luke 
12 :13-15 who came to Jesus and wanted his 
case adjudged satisfactorily. He and his 
brother had fallen heir to an inheritance, and 
his brother had ran away with the whole 
thing. Jesus' response to the man's request 
to make his brother divide up with him was, 
"Who made Me a judge or a divider over 
you 9'' and proceeded to preach to the man on 
the sin of covetousness. When Jesus comes 
again He will settle cases like that, but that 
was not His mission at His first coming. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 169 

Further the passage in Isaiah says, "His 
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the 
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His govern- 
ment and peace there shall be no end, upon 
the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, 
to order it, and to establish it with judgment 
and justice from henceforth even for ever." 
But the Lord Jesus did not sit upon David's 
throne when here, nor did He establish world 
peace. So it is evident this prophecy has nev- 
er been fulfilled. When the Lord returns, as 
He promised to do, He will sit upon David's 
throne and rule the nations of the world. 
Thus we see that, between the birth of Jesus 
and His reigning, given here in the same con- 
nection, there is the same prophetic gap into 
which the church fits. 

Another Scripture of the same character is 
Isaiah 11:1-9. A study of this passage from 
the first verse, where it says, "There shall 
come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and 
a branch shall grow out of his roots," to the 
9th verse, where it says, "They shall not hurt 
nor destroy in all My holy mountain," there 
is no mention made of the church; but it is 



170 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

evident again that there is a gap somewhere 
in the prophecy where the church period falls 
in its place when the New Testament com- 
pletes the revelation of God begun in the Old 
Testament prophecies. 

To be sure, much of this passage will yield 
rich truths by spiritualizing the statements 
and applying them to the church. "The 
wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the 
leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the 
calf and the young lion and the f atling togeth- 
er." These things have never been literally 
fulfilled, waiting for Millennial conditions. 
But there are people with natural conditions 
as diverse as the wolf, lamb, kid, lion 
and calf, and salvation can make them all get 
along together. There are some people who 
are just naturally lamb-like, that hardly 
think they need to be converted; and then 
there are people like the leopard, cunning 
and ravenous. To think of their being so 
changed that they lie down together without 
the leopard eating the lamb is wonderful. 
Then there are people bellowing around like 
big unweaned calves because they cannot 
have their way about everything; and others 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 171 

like the lion, who cannot endure those calves 
in their sight. But the Gospel can make that 
calf and lion get on together. Before the lion 
can eat straw like an ox, as it tells about 
here, he must have an interior work done in 
him. In his natural state he could not eat 
straw and live. His digestive apparatus must 
be readjusted. There are people today w T ho 
could never live on the Gospel in their native 
state. It is all straw to them. Even though 
the finest things of the Gospel come their 
way, it is all straw. But how they fatten 
Avhen the interior work is done ! 

All this makes splendid spiritual material 
for a sermon, but to say that such use of it 
exhausts the prophecy is absurd. There is 
going to be a time when the natural lion will 
eat straw like an ox, and these various ani- 
mals, domestic and wild, are going to get 
along together. But from this Scripture 
alone it might seem that Jesus was going to 
start in from His birth and stay on the earth 
right through to His Millennial reign without 
a break. But we find from the New Testa- 
ment that somewhere there is a gap in this 
prophecy where the church age is thrown in. 



172 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Lest some may say that I am speculating 
in the use I make of these passages, let us 
examine carefully a passage of Old Testament 
prophecy that Jesus commented on Himself. 

In Isaiah we read the following prophecy 
in the 61st chapter, verses one, two and three, 
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; 
because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach 
good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me 
to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim 
liberty to the captives, and the opening of 
the prison to them that are bound; to pro- 
claim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the 
day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all 
that mourn." etc. 

In Luke, chapter 4, there is an account of 
Jesus' visit to the synagogue in His old home 
town at Nazareth. The attendant in the 
synagogue handed Him the book of Isaiah 
which He took and began reading, as com- 
parison with the above will show, from the 
beginning of the 61st chapter. What He 
read is given in Luke 4:18 and 19, as follows: 
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because 
He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to 
the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 173 

hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, 
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at 
liberty them that are bruised, to preach the 
acceptable year of the Lord." At this place 
He stopped and handed the book back to the 
attendant, saying, "This day is this Scripture 
fulfilled in your ears." 

Examination will show that Jesus stopped 
in His reading at a comma, and at a very sig- 
nificant comma also, for following that are 
the words, "and the day of vengeance of our 
God," a prophecy that He could not say was 
fulfilled that day. In the little pause of that 
comma had dropped in the "prophetic gap," 
of which we have been telling you, and that 
gap is filled with the church age. The day of 
vengeance will come in the great tribulation 
that follows the taking out of the church at 
the end of this age. 

The work of this entire dispensation is to 
proclaim Jesus' terms of peace. He began 
it in His ministry, delivered it to His Apos- 
tles, and it is the work of His church until 
He comes to take them away to the mansions 
He has gone to prepare. Let us apply our- 
selves and our energies and resources dili- 
gently to that one task. 



CHAPTER VII 

JESUS CHRIST TAKES OVER THE 
GOVERNMENT 

In previous lectures we have seen in suc- 
cession the apostacy of Lucifer as world gov* 
ernor; the failure of Adam to qualify as his 
possible successor; Jesus Christ ordained 
before the foundation of the world, coming as 
heir of Adam, and appointed the heir of the 
world, but rejected by the world; we have 
seen Him invested with power by the Father 
and issuing His proclamation of peace 
through His ambassadors. 

The Longsuffering of God 

We are living in the times of His peace 
proclamation, which we particularly consid- 
ered in our previous lecture. We get weary 
sometimes at what seems to be Christ's delay 
in taking over the government. To the scoff- 
er this apparent delay is evidence of slackness 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 175 

concerning His promise, as asserted in II 
Peter 3:3-4. "Knowing this first, that there 
shall come in the last days scoffers, walking 
after their own lusts, and saying, Where is 
the promise of His coming? for since the fa- 
thers fell asleep, all things continue as they 
were from the beginning of the creation." 
Even the martyred saints, express a little 
weariness at His seeming delay, as given in 
Revelation 6:10: "How long, Lord, holy 
and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our 
blood on them that dwell on the earth?" 

But the Scriptures call this seeming delay, 
God's long-suffering, (II Pet. 3:9), "The 
Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as 
some men count slackness; but is longsuffer- 
ing to usward, not willing that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repent- 
ance." This present age of the Gospel preach- 
ing has been a long age already. How much 
longer it is going to be we do not know. It is 
the age of God's longsuffering. Jesus Christ 
has not been willing that any should perish 
since provision has been made for the salva- 
tion of all. For these and other reasons He 
has not sooner taken over the world govern- 



176 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

ment. It is not delay, nor is it slackness, but 
it is longsuffering that has made Him wait 
so long. 

The Day of the Lord 

But Peter goes on to say, in the 10th verse 
of the same chapter, that "the day of the 
Lord will come;" when He will begin drastic 
measures to quell rebellion, ushering in a 
period of conquest and rule of iron known as 
the Millennium. The whole Millennium may 
be considered as a period of conquest, and the 
term "Day of the Lord" may apply to that 
whole period of a thousand years mentioned 
in verse 8, "one day is with the Lord as a 
thousand years." 

This "day of the Lord" begins with the 
great tribulation commencing in the seven 
years that constitute the seventieth w T eek of 
Daniel's period of seventy weeks of years, the 
sixty-ninth ending with the crucifixion, after 
which the church came in, and the seventieth 
week has been held back until the mystery 
of the church is finished. When the church 
is taken out that seven years will come in 
before the thousand years, and the term "Day 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 177 

of the Lord" seems to include that, and very 
often seems to refer to that specifically, 
because of the terrible events occurring then 
to usher in the new age. 

The Order of Conquest 

Now as to the order of Christ's taking over 
the government: The first movement in a 
series of startling events that is going to be 
manifest to the inhabitants of the world will 
be the sudden removal to heaven of the dead 
and living saints that constitute the church of 
the whole age. You remember that, when 
the great war began, the first indication point- 
ing to a declaration of war was that each of 
the nations called their citizens out of the 
countries on which they were about to declare 
war. So when Jesus is about to declare war 
on the rebellious earth, the first indication 
that the dwellers on the earth will have of it, 
is that He has called His citizens out. That 
is an event liable to occur at any time. Jesus 
has had the authority to do it at any time 
time since He went away, without violating 
any Old Testament prophecy. But He has 
never yet chosen to do it. He has extended 



178 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

His longsuff ering longer and longer. But he 
will do it some day, and that will be the first 
movement of His conquest — the gathering 
of His people out of all the tribes of the earth. 
It will include all those who belong to the 
Bride-hood of Christ, the saints who have 
died throughout this age and those living 
when the event occurs. That group of saints 
who have been gathered since Pentecost, and 
unto the time of the Lord's coming, will be 
called out as one group, a group distinct from 
the saved people of all ages before. 

Jesus is preparing a special place for this 
group of saints. He said in the 14th chapter 
of John, "In My Father's house are many 
mansions (or, "abiding places"): if it were 
not so, I would have told you. I go to pre- 
pare a place for you." He does not say to ren- 
ovate one of those places already there, nor 
to repair one of them for you, but to prepare 
a place (a new place) for you. Jesus said 
there were already many mansions in His Fa- 
ther's house, and I suppose they had occu- 
pants — angels, arch-angels and other heaven- 
ly beings — when Jesus talked about it. But, 
He says, "I go to prepare a place for you;" 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 179 

that is, He went over to build a mansion for 
us. His bride, and that is how He has been 
occupied, in part at least, while He is gone, 
I suppose. And He has sent the Holy Ghost 
over here to fix us up to be suitable to occupy 
that mansion. 

Again He says, "If I go and prepare a 
place for you, I will come again, and receive 
you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye 
may be also." He is not talking about death, 
but about the resurrection day, when all the 
saints will go as a group into that place He 
has been all the age preparing for them, His 
bride. Those who have died have not enter- 
ed into that place yet. They are in some 
good place, happy, consciously happy, with 
God, and it is proper to say, in a general way, 
that they are in heaven; but specifically they 
have not entered that place prepared for us, 
and will not until Ave all go together, made 
like Him with our resurrection bodies. 

This sudden catching away of the bride is 
described in many places in the Scriptures, 
notably in I Thessalonians 4:16-17: "The 
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with 
a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 



180 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

with the trump of God: and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive 
and remain shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord;" 
and again in first Corinthians 15:51-52, "We 
shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at 
the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, 
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
we shall be changed." 0, happy moment when 
He shall come to take to Himself His own. 

The Dethroning of Satan 

The next stage of conquest will be the de- 
throning of Satan and his angels and casting 
them out of the heavenly places. Satan was 
judicially dethroned when Jesus was judicial- 
ly invested with all authority in heaven and 
earth, but at this time the decree of dethrone- 
ment will be executed. The event is describ- 
ed in the 12th chapter of Revelation. We are 
there told in symbolical language of the w r o- 
man whose child is born and immediately 
caught away to God's throne. That symbol 
is doubtless the climactic event of the age. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 181 

bringing together in one composite picture 
what has lasted through the age, the man 
child being Christ and His church; Himself 
the mystical Head, and the church His mys- 
tical body. (Eph. 1:22-23). 

In this connection it will be well to explain 
a little about the place and position of Satan 
in this present age. Ephesians 6:12 tells 
what the Christian wrestles against in this 
life: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, 
but against principalities, against powers, 
against the rulers of the darkness of this 
world, against spiritual wickedness in high 
places," (margin, " against wicked spirits in 
heavenly places"). If we might attempt to lo- 
cate these " heavenly places" we would place 
them in an intermediate position between the 
earth below and heaven above. The " third 
heaven" is spoken of in II Cor. 12:2. If there 
is a third heaven, then it is evident there 
must be a second heaven. According to Gro- 
tius the Jews divided the heaven into three 
parts, viz., 1. The air or atmosphere; 2. The 
firmament, in which the sun, moon and stars 
are fixed; 3. The upper heaven, the abode of 
God and His angels, the invisible realm of 



182 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

holiness and happiness, the home of the chil- 
dren of God. The location of Satan and his 
hosts in this age appears to be in the second 
heaven. Spiritually we, as the church, are al- 
ready set down in these heavenly places in 
Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6) hence our present 
spiritual conflict with Satan and his angels, 
of which Israel's contention with the inhab- 
itants of Canaan is a type. From these heav- 
enly places Satan dominates the governments 
and institutions of the w T orld. This explains 
why mere reform efforts in politics and social 
uplift do not perceptibly better individuals or 
communities. They do not get at the seat of 
the difficulty. The true reformation is spirit- 
ual, for by this means men are brought to 
where they can contend with the rulers of 
this world's darkness. A good revival in a 
community will do more to bring about a ref- 
ormation than anything else we can do. 

When Christ descends from the third heav- 
en, where he is in his resurrected body in 
this age, He and His saints in their resurrect- 
ed bodies will be taken to this intermediate 
heaven, precipitating the conflict between the 
dragon and his angels and Michael and his 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 183 

angels, described in the twelfth chapter of 
Revelation. It says of the dragon and his 
angels that they "prevailed not; neither was 
their place found any more in heaven. And 
the great dragon was cast out, that old ser- 
pent, called the devil, and Satan, which de- 
ceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into 
the earth, and his angels w T ere cast out with 
him." Then it says of the saints, "They 
overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and 
by the word of their testimony." 

By way of illustration, suppose a man 
had been elected to a political office, and that 
the old incumbent disputed the right of the 
newly elected party to take his place, a law- 
suit would be necessary to settle the dispute. 
So when this man child, representing Christ 
and His church, come into the heavenly 
places, prepared to take the rule over the na- 
tions, the dragon and his angels dispute their 
right to the place. Then ensues this "war 
in heaven" — a war of words, not a war of 
swords; a forensic battle, like that fought out 
in law-suits. The contention of Satan will be 
that the saints have no right to his seat. 
"Look how bad they have been," Satan may^ 



184 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

argue, "I conquered their ancestor Adam 
long ago, and what right have they, his puny 
descendants, to come up here and take the 
seat of myself and followers'?" But the 
answer to the argument is that they do not 
come by their own righteousness, but by the 
righteousness of Christ. If necessary the va- 
lidity of salvation by the Atonement can then 
be thrashed out in the law-courts of heaven 
to see whether or not it can stand the test of 
ihe assembled wisdom of the universe. Praise 
God, it stands the test and the saints are 
given their seats on the verdict, "They over- 
came him by the blood of the Lamb, and by 
the word of their testimony." 

The other day, in a previous lecture, we 
were dwelling on the legal, scientific and 
moral aspects of the Atonement. Here is 
where its validity will be put to the test in 
open court, with all the dignitaries of heaven 
looking on, and the saints are justified in 
their claim to their seats in the heavenly 
places, and Satan and his emmissaries are de- 
throned and cast out into the earth, while 
the saints experimentally take the places 
which they have spiritually been holding in 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 185 

Christ. In other words, they will be inaugu- 
rated into offices to which they have been 
elected. 

Satan Comes to the Earth 

As a result of the enthronement of the 
saints and the casting down of Satan, the 
dragon and his angels come down to the 
earth and play havoc here. The inspired 
Apostle in this connection says, (Rev. 12:12), 
"Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of 
the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, 
having great wrath, because he knoweth that 
he hath but a short time." Well may Ave, as 
admonished in Luke 21:36, "Pray always that 
ye may be accounted worthy to escape all 
these things that shall come to pass, and to 
stand before the Son of man. 7 ' It is legitimate 
for us to pray that we shall have such an ex- 
perience as to be counted worthy, through the 
blood of the Lamb, to escape the things that 
are to come to pass on the earth in the days 
of the dragon's rule. At that time, with the 
church gone, to the inhabiters of the earth it 
will look as though Satan was just getting 
settled on his throne, and that Jesus Christ 



186 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

had abandoned the world. For a little time 
the earth will have peace as Satan inaugu- 
rates his mock millennium. The strife of 
right and wrong will be apparently suspend- 
ed for a time and Satan's mock righteousness 
will deceive the world. During this interval, 
doubtless, the Bridegroom and the bride are 
enjoying the marriage supper of the Lamb. 

Satan Expelled from the Earth 

The next process of Christ's taking over 
the government, having called His people out 
of the earth and cleared the rebels out of the 
heavenly places, is to inaugurate a campaign 
that will drive the devil and his angels out of 
the earth, and break his rule among men. He 
does this by the process of a campaign as 
related in Revelation from the 6th to the 19th 
chapters, a vast scope of Scripture that we 
can only touch in this lecture. 

You will notice that the book of Eevelation 
is comparatively easily analyzed. The first 
chapter is the introduction, which tells of 
what John personally saw; then there are two 
chapters describing the church age under the 
figure of the seven churches of Asia; then 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 187 

follow two chapters, the 4th and 5th, describ- 
ing scenes in heaven after the bride arrives 
there, supplemented by what is in the 12th 
chapter, already mentioned; then follow chap- 
ters six to nineteen, telling what happens on 
the earth when Jesus Christ dispossesses 
Satan, which we are now especially consid- 
ering; then follows chapter 20, telling about 
the Millennium, and Satan's " little season" 
rebellion, and the judgment of the great white 
throne. Chapters 21 and 22 are devoted 
mostly to a description of the new heaven 
and earth with a conclusion in the form of 
an exhortation. 

It may be necessary for us to briefly ob- 
serve the account given in chapters four and 
five. John here saw T a door opened in heaven, 
heard a trumpet and immediately went up, a 
picture of how the whole church will do when 
that time arrives. Arriving in heaven, he 
sees there that from which the tabernacle 
built by Moses was patterned. He sees a 
throne and One sitting on the throne. There 
is a rainbow around the throne, calling us 
back to the covenant with Noah. God does 
not forget His covenant. The throne is prac- 



188 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

tically in the same place as the mercy-seat of 
the tabernacle. Before the throne were seven 
lamps burning, like the seven-branched can- 
dlestick in the tabernacle. Then there is a 
sea of glass, like the laver in the tabernacle. 
There are also twenty-four seats for elders, 
suggesting the twenty-four courses of priests 
in the time of the temple. 

Passing on to the fifth chapter we find dis- 
played a book in the right hand of Him that 
sits on the throne, and a strong angel pro- 
claims throughout heaven, asking, "Who is 
worthy to open the book?" John says he did 
not see anyone respond; so he wept much. 
No man was found worthy. It is evident that 
it must be a man that is going to open that 
book. But an elder came over and told John 
that he was in heaven now, and did not need 
to weep any more, to dry his tears and ob- 
serve that the Lion of the tribe of Judah had 
prevailed to open the book. John then " be- 
held a Lamb as it had been slain." He 

looked for a loin and saw a Lamb sacrifice, 
and it is remarkable that this word "Lamb," 
as applied to Jesus Christ, appears twenty- 
eight times in the book of Revelation, more 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 189 

times than in all the rest of the Bible. 
We might think that when we get over to that 
realm with Jesus on the throne, that we will 
be past the Atonement; but we find Jesus pre- 
sented there in His atonement aspect more 
frequently than He ever has been before, for 
it is the ground of all His redemptive work. 
It is the Lamb that takes the book out of 
the hand of Him that sat on the throne. 
Whatever may be the content of this book, 
it certainly has something to do with the tak- 
ing over of the government of the world. 
Satan's rule of the world has been somewhat 
after the squatter plan. There is a sense in 
which he does not belong here. Adam, to 
whom the world appertained, never properly 
proved his claim, so Satan jumped the claim 
and has held it ever since. Now, in order to 
expel a squatter, one must proceed in a legal 
manner. And so God deals with Satan, as in 
all His work, legally. We, as simple children 
of God, do not often consider what lies back 
of all God's gentle love and care. He is our 
Father, and we revel in His mercy and love, 
but back of these blessings there is a legal 
process by which He secures to us every item 



190 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

of our rights. So by a legal process He gains 
the overthrow of Satan's rule on earth, and 
this book seems to give the right to Jesus 
Christ to institute measures for the expulsion 
of Satan. 

As the Lamb begins to open the seals, as 
related in the sixth of Revelation, things be- 
gin to be manifest on the earth. Things take 
place on the earth as they do, because things 
are occurring in the heavenly places as they 
are. If one knows what is happening in the 
heavenly places, he will know what will soon 
happen on earth, because the things worked 
out in human government and society have 
first been devised in the heavenly places. Let 
me illustrate: Before the great war broke out 
in Europe there were English and German 
colonies living peaceably side by side in Af- 
rica, but immediately when it became known 
that there was trouble between the ruling 
powers of England and Germany, the colonies 
at once took up the fight, not because they 
had any difficulty with each other about 
which to fight, but because the ruling powers 
were at war. So when the Lamb and His peo- 
ple get possession of the heavenly places from 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 191 

which the earth is dominated and He begins 
to open this book, things begin to happen 
down on earth. Every reform movement on 
earth must fail until the heavenly places are 
taken, hence Christians are more interested 
in enthroning Jesus than in trying to patch 
up a truce with sin. 

Gathering His Earth Saints 

It is interesting to note that, after Jesus 
gets His heavenly saints out of the world, He 
begins, in connection with the work of expell- 
ing Satan, the process of getting Israel, His 
earthly saints, gathered. His earthly rule is 
going to be over His earthly people, Israel. 
So He institutes measures to segregate them 
from the rest of the world. The consequent 
calamities that result from the opening of the 
seals bring that about. 

This process is pictured beforehand in the 
plagues upon Egypt. When God sent the 
plagues upon the land of Egypt by the hand 
of Moses, He began a process that separated 
His people from the Egyptians; and so the 
plagues of the tribulation period are for the 
segregation of Israel from the rest of the na- 



192 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

tions. the bringing of them together in a nat- 
ionality of their own, that through them He 
niay bring all the world into subjection. 
These plagues upon Egypt serve as a key to 

the tribulation period. It was a miniature 
picture of the tribulation. The object 
of the plagues upon Egypt was two-fold. 
They were for the purpose of segregating Is- 
rael, as already noted, and also, as shown by 
Numbers 33 -A. to execute judgment upon the 
gods of the Egyptians. This explains why 
the ten plagues fell upon just the things they 
did. There were certain things that Egypt 
had denied and placed in the position God 
should have occupied. They deified the Nile 
river, because without it there would hav^ 
been no Egypt. Failing to look to the Giver 
of all good, they looked to the river, and 
brought their sacrifices to it. So. when Moses 
comes, he touches that god. The sun was an- 
other of their gods, and the plague of dark- 
ness was a rebuke to that god. They had 
frog gods, and Moses showed them that his 
God could bring frogs out of the river in spite 
of their god who was supposed to control the 
frog activities. Then their priests, who were 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 193 

so cleanly, had lice brought upon them so that 
they could not fulfil their priestly task in 
ministry to their heathen worship. The sa- 
cred ox was smitten also. Every plague was 
directed against some Egyptian god. Pha- 
raoh had asked Moses, "Who is the Lord, 
that I should obey His voiced" And so one 
by one the plagues fell upon the gods of 
Egypt until the Lord had demonstrated His 
power over all that the Egyptians had wor- 
shipped as gods. 

Now, here is the key to the plagues that 
follow the opening of these seals. One by one 
the plagues fall upon the things that this 
present world is putting in the place of God. 
When He opens the first seal .there comes 
forth a white horse. It is indicative of how 
easily good people may be mistaken, and 
therefore how readily they can be deceived, 
that two quite prominent expositors in re- 
cent books declare that the rider on the 
white horse was Jesus Christ. How anyone 
can think this after reading Rev. 19:11-16, 
where another white horse is described, is a 
mystery. There can be no question as to 
the identity of the Rider of the latter white 



194 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

horse, for He is fully described and named. 
The only resemblance between these white 
horses and their riders is the color of the 
horses. The white horse in both cases sym- 
bolizes moral goodness, but their riders are 
quite different. The personality of the rider 
on the white horse of the sixth chapter is 
wholly obscured; not a word is said of his 
person. 

The same tendency that confuses these 
white horses, confuses various movements in 
the world now. The human mind is prone to 
look at results instead of names. So long as 
something is calculated to produce good re- 
sults, that must be something we ought to 
help. The thing for us to do, before mounting 
a hobby horse is to observe, not only the 
horse, but also the driver. 

I am disposed to think that we see in this 
white horse the great human reform move- 
ments which the Anti-christ (the dragon's 
manifestation on the earth) is going to insti- 
tute on the earth when he comes down. He 
will take advantage of the solemnizing effect 
upon the world of the departure of the saints 
to institute some great world "get-better" 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 195 

schemes, which will be caught up by the in- 
habitants of the earth and substituted for 
about. So deceptive and self-righteous is 
human nature under the leadership of Satan. 
Here is one thing that the people of the 
earth have put in the place of God, morality. 
And we need not w r ait until the Anti-christ 
comes to see this god worshipped. The 
preaching of moral reform, civic righteous- 
ness, temperance, prohibition, white slave 
suppression and the like are rapidly driving 
the gospel out of the pulpit today. These 
things have come to be considered by some to 
be the Gospel itself. While every Christian 
will be moral, temperate and chaste, those 
who become advocates of these things apart 
from the Blood of Jesus Christ as the means 
by which to secure them are advance agents 
of the Anti-christ, for no amount of self- 
righteousness, however seemingly pure it may 
be, can, apart from the righteousness which is 
by faith in Jesus Christ, remove the desire to 
sin from people's hearts or write a name in 
heaven. These good things without the Blood 
of Jesus as a means thereto, are getting the 



196 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

world ready for the reign of the dragon and 
his angels when they get down here. 

The things that will constitute the elements 
of Anti-christ's christless gospel are already 
here in the present day. It only needs the 
master hand of the arch-deceiver to complete 
them and make a svstem that will deceive all 
whose names are not in the Lamb's book of 
life. Thousands of preachers who should be 
holding up Christ as the only hope of lost 
souls are prostituting their pulpits every 
Sunday to the anti-christian gospel of salva- 
tion by good works. Thousands of well- 
meaning but deceived Christians are pouring 
their money into the support of movements, 
that, while calculated to raise the moral stan- 
dard among men, never have and never will 
deliver a soul from sin. People seem to think 
Satan's fight is against good morals. Here 
they are wrong. Satan delights in morality, 
and would save the world by it if he could. 
His fight is against the blood of Jesus Christ, 
and the better he can make individual men 
and women and communities without it, the 
better he succeeds in damning them to hell. 
Under this seal we see morality without 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 197 

Christ come to its full, and in the next seal 
we see the collapse. 

When the Lamb opens the second seal 
there comes out a red horse, with power to 
take peace from the earth, thus showing how 
futile has been all the Christless reform move- 
ments preceding. It would appear that, un- 
der the white horse seal, world-peace will 
have been established, symbolized by the bow 
but no arrow of the rider. This is further 
suggested by the statement that the rider on 
the red horse is given power to take peace 
from the earth, which could not be said of 
him if peace had not been established. 

Here is revealed another thing that men 
have put in the place of God. Politics has 
been many a man's religion. If you do not 
believe it get some middle-aged seeker down 
to the altar and try to get him to put his poli- 
tics on the altar. Men have tied their hopes 
for a better country to some political party 
and poured out their offerings of money be- 
yond anything they do for God. The old par- 
ties have never done it, the Prohibitionists 
will never do it, nor socialism, nor woman's 
suffrage. In like manner they have tied to 



198 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

international politics until they hope to leg- 
islate the world into goodness. &ood politics 
is a fine thing for the dwellers of the earth, 
but for ambassadors of the heavenly country 
to dabble therein is surely a snare, and to put 
it in place of God is idolatry. So the opening 
of this seal, the second one, precipitates a 
plague on the international political realm, 
and political anarchy sweeps around the 
world in one universal war. I apprehend 
there is a war coming under the opening of 
that seal that will make the great European 
war insignificant in comparison. Think of an 
army in which the horsemen alone number 
two hundred million (Rev. 9:16). 

When the third seal is opened a black horse 
appears and the rider has a pair of balances 
in his hand. This symbol is not hard to un- 
derstand. We see balances at the grocery 
store and at the meat shop. Then mention is 
also made of measures. We see measures at 
the grain store and at the flour mill. A voice 
says, "A measure of wheat for a penny, 
and three measures of barley for a penny." 
A penny is a type of a day's wages, and the 
measure here spoken of contains about three 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 199 

pints. In other words a man works all day 
for enough to buy three pints of wheat. We 
think food prices are high now, but a good 
many men could buy a bushel of wheat for 
a day's wages even now. Think how much 
worse it will be then! This seal falls on the 
commercial realm, and here again we see an- 
other thing that men have put in the place of 
God. To be sure coins say, "In God we 
trust," but it is a well-known fact that many 
people put money in the place of God. If he 
can only get enough money the average man 
thinks life will be made for him; and many 
professing to be Christians jeopardize their 
souls by joining in the great mad rush for 
wealth. This fever to get rich has greatly in- 
creased in recent years. 

For a number of years much legislation has 
been directed to the control of business in the 
hope that every person would have his share 
of this world's good things, for there is plenty 
in the country for us all to eat, plenty for us 
to wear, and for us all to get along nicely: but 
now we see a time of advancing prices almost 
unprecedented, and it had begun before the 
war added its acceleration to the upward 



200 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

trend of prices. This god of men is to be 
shown unable to care for his devotees. 

When the fourth seal is opened, " behold a 
pale horse : and his name that sat on him was 
Death, and Hell followed with him." Men 
have thought to lengthen life by sanitation, 
and seem to have succeeded in doing so to the 
extent of increasing the average age of Amer- 
ican people two or three years. We can be 
truly thankful for all this, but when one 
spends more time and money on lengthening 
life a few years than in propagating everlast- 
ing life, then sanitation, medication and the 
like become another of the rivals of God in 
the human heart. Men act as though med- 
icine, or the sea-side, or the mountains could 
give them eternal life. Ponce de Leon vainly 
hoped to find the fountain of perpetual youth, 
and he has his imitators in every quarter. 
One wealthy man, it is reported, offered ten 
million dollars to any physician who would 
lengthen his life ten years. To thus spend 
more money in a vain endeavor to prolong 
life than to propagate the Gospel of eternal 
life is to place medication and sanitation be- 
fore God. Phvsical health must not be in the 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 201 

place of soul health. Even in meetings for 
Divine healing we need to be very careful 
that physical needs do not rival in importance 
the supreme place held by spiritual needs. 

When the fifth seal is opened John "saw 
under the altar the souls of them that were 
slain for the word of God, and for the testi- 
mony which they held/' It is the ecclesiastical 
realm that now comes in for retribution. An- 
other one of those things that men have been 
putting in the place of God is the church. 
This is not true of Catholics only. The Prot- 
estants are falling in with a scheme to feder- 
ate their denominations. It has been pretty 
well consumated already. There is talk al- 
ready of some kind of union with unortho- 
dox denominations and with Catholics. They 
entertain hopes of renovating politics and 
hope to carry out a program of relief for the 
oppressed as never before; but under this 
fifth seal we see the consummation of these 
man-made schemes. These slain ones are un- 
der the altar and have been beheaded bcause 
of their love for the Word of God and for 
their testimony of a vital experience. 

Eight along with this federating movement 



202 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

is sweeping the new theology movement. 
Many of its prominent officers are advocates 
of the system. These very advocates of a 
system that thinks God is too good to send 
men to hell are but forerunners of a system 
that will bring to the executioner's block 
men and women who in those dark tribulation 
days have no greater crime charged against 
them than daring to stand by the old Bible 
and bear a testimony to a living experience 
of grace in their hearts. There are people 
right now, with the true church yet in the 
world, who are losing their ecclesiastical 
heads for this very testimony and attitude to- 
ward the Bible; but, under the fifth seal of 
the tribulation they are going to literally have 
their physical heads taken off. These are 
the ones that cry out, "How long, O Lord, 
holy and true, dost Thou not judge and 
avenge our Wood on them that dwell on the 
earth?" But they are told to wait a little while 
until their fellow servants and their brethren 
that should be killed as they were should be 
fulfilled. 

Then the sixth seal is opened, and " there 
was a great earthquake; and the sun became 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 203 

black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon be- 
came as blood; and the stars of heaven fell 
unto the earth" — a terrible physical calamity. 
Another thing that men have put into the 
place of God is material invention and util- 
ization of natural forces. This is a great ma- 
terialistic time in which we live. Inventions 
have crowded one another so rapidly in our 
day that men have hoped by the utilization 
of natural forces to make this w r orld an annex 
to heaven. They are so manipulating elec- 
tricity, steam and other elements as to sur- 
round themselves with luxury and make the 
earth into an Eden and a Paradise ; but they 
are forgetting and denying God, and the sixth 
seal breaks in on them and shakes their in- 
ventions into a heap of rubbish. 

The Gathering of More Saints 

Aftre the sixth seal, and before the 
seventh, comes, as related in the seventh chap- 
ter of Revelation, the gathering of two groups 
of saints from the earth. 

The first group is described in verses 1 to 8. 
They are definitely described so there need be 
no confusion as to their identity. They are 



204 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

144,000 in number, and, as the description 
shows, are made up of 12,000 from each of the 
twelve ^ tribes of the children of Israel." (vs, 
4) . These are sealed in such a way that none 
of the succeeding plagues harm them. (See 
Rev. 9:4). Their place of service is evidently 
on earth. The same group is seen again in 
Rev. 14:1. They are a group of Israelites 
gathered after the church is caught away to 
heaven, and serve as a nucleus of the re- 
stored nation of Israel. Where God finds 
them is not explained, but they are evidently 
in the world somewhere. He finds them and 
gathers them together and seals them. 

Following this John saw another group of 
saints, as described in verses 9 to 17, a great 
multitude that no man could number. These 
are " before the throne," evidently in heaven, 
and therefore could not be the same group 
as that we saw before, nor are they associ- 
ated with that group; neither are they the 
bride, the church, for she went at the be- 
ginning of the fourth chapter: "A great 
multitude which no man could number, 
of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
tongues, stood before the throne, and before 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 205 

the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms 
in their hands." We have sung about bearing 
palms of victory, as though we were of this 
multitude, but the church is to sit with the 
Lord Jesus upon His throne, (Rev. 3:21), 
while these bear palms before the throne. 

One of the elders asks John (vs. 13) the 
very question in our minds: "What are these 
which are arrayed in white robes ? and whence 
came they?" John evidently did not know, 
and replies, "Sir, thou knowest." The elder's 
reply is: "These are they which came out of 
("the" in "R. V.) great tribulation, and have 
washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb." The evidence is clear 
that these saints, gathered from all nations, 
are people saved after the church has been 
completed and taken to heaven. The fact 
that they come out of the great tribulation 
has caused expositors to designate them 
"tribulation saints," a term that seems very 
appropriate. This great multitude is gather- 
ed from all over the world, and they are 
taken to heaven, evidently, for they are there 
before the throne. These seem to be the same 
ones that we find again in the 20th chapter 



206 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

of Revelation (vs. 4) many of whom were be- 
headed, as related there, and may be those de- 
scribed under the fifth seal. 

It is plain that these saints get their sal- 
vation through the same precious Blood that 
we do, because it is said of their robes, they 
"have washed them and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb." There is no salva- 
tion in any dispensation for any one but 
through the blood of Jesus Christ. But these 
belong to a different group than the church, 
known as the bride of Christ. They are saved 
during the tribulation period, evidently by 
means of some world-wide missionary cam- 
paign, in which quite likely, the 144,000 of 
the previous group may be engaged. I do 
not think by any means that they are apos- 
tates from the church who came in for a sec- 
ond chance after they find the church has 
gone. It will take more stability to stand 
when heads are coming off, as they will in the 
days when these saints are being gathered, 
than in our days, though the enemy's meth- 
ods will not be as subtle as now. 

For some reason the saints w T ho are true to 
their absent Lover Jesus Christ in these days, 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 207 

when the old world is playing lover, are count- 
ed worthy of being His bride above those who 
resist the world when it becomes a threaten- 
ing tyrant. There is much about these inter- 
esting saints of chapter seven, and the man- 
ner of their salvation and gathering to heaven 
that we can well be puzzled about, but we 
cannot here spend more time with them. 

The Battle of Armageddon 

At the beginning of the eighth chapter of 
Revelation the Lamb opens the seventh and 
last seal, and from there to the end of the 
19th chapter a succession of plagues and oth- 
er marvelous occurrences are recorded, wind- 
ing up with the great battle of Armageddon. 
The preparation is made for the battle in Rev- 
elation 16:12-16, but the battle comes in the 
19th chapter, after the somewhat parenthetic 
17th and 18th chapters describing other 
scenes. 

You will notice that there are two comings 
of Jesus described in Scripture prophecy as 
yet future. Both are included in the term 
"the second coming," but they need to be 
differentiated for a proper understanding of 



208 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

the subject. First Jesus comes to get His 
church, just before the tribulation, and then 
He comes back with His church to reign after 
the tribulation. It is at the time of this latter 
coming of the Lord that the battle of Arma- 
geddon occurs, closing the tribulation and 
ushering in the Millennium. At this time the 
nations on earth will see Jesus coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 
His feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives, 
and He will inaugurate that order of 
things that will destroy the Gentile armies 
arrayed at the time against Jerusalem, then 
populated by Jews, His earth saints. He will 
begin His thousand year rule over Israel, pos- 
sibly bringing up in resurrection all the right- 
eous Israel of the Old Testament and rein- 
stating them in the land of the original prom- 
ise, reaching from Egypt to the Euphrates 
river, (Gen. 15:18). David perhaps will be 
the earthly king of the Jews, Jesus being the 
supreme Ruler over all the earth. (See Ezek. 
34:23; 37:24-25; Hosea 3:5). While these pas- 
sages are usually interpreted as referring to 
Jesus Christ, the antitypical David, w T hieh is 
doubtless included, there is reason to believe 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 209 

that David himself is to be raised up as a rul- 
er under Christ. 

There are many things in this connection 
on which one cannot dogmatize, and it is idle 
to speculate. It is good to dwell upon those 
things the Spirit has made plain to the 
church. Just as things pertaining to the 
church were a mystery to Israel, so things 
concerning Israel's future are hidden in part 
from us. Just as He is revealing to the 
preachers these days the Scripture that con- 
cerns the heavenly saints, so when the Jews 
have been gathered, we have reason to believe 
there will be raised up to them teachers that 
shall teach them the meaning of the Scrip- 
tures concerning their future, which we do 
not need to know. I think that what the fut- 
ure of the Jews is going to be is all in the Old 
Testament, and that, as a result of the teach- 
ing of special teachers raised up for them, 
there will be a readiness on the part of many 
of them to receive Jesus Christ when He rides 
down on the clouds, shows Israel His pierced 
hands and feet and declares Himself their 
Messiah. 

Having gathered the Israelitish nation, Je- 



210 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

siis will extend His political rule over all na- 
tions during the thousand years of the Mil- 
lennium. Beyond that lies the time when, 
having put down all rebellion in the universe, 
He will turn the kingdom over to God, which 
will be the subject of our next lecture. 



CHAPTER VIH 

JESUS CHRIST RESTORES THE 
KINGDOM TO GOD 

In this lecture we come to the consumma- 
tion of the work of Christ as Provincial Gov- 
ernor of the earth. His appointment, His 
offer of peace to repentant rebels, His taking 
over of the government of the world, all of 
which we have considered in previous 
lectures have been to the end that this rebell- 
ious planet and its people, with all other re- 
bellious things may be put in subjection to 
God, that God may be all in all. 

As a Scripture basis from which to proceed 
we will read 1 Corinthians 15 :24-28. In order 
to make plain the antecedents of many pro- 
nouns, which is very important if we would 
understand the passage, I will put them in 
as we read. 

"Then cometh the end, when He (Jesus) 
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, 
even the Father; when He (Jesus) shall have 
put down all rule and all authority and power. 



212 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

For He (Jesus) must reign, till He (Jesus) 
hath put all enemies under His (Jesus') feet. 
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is 
death. For He( the Father) hath put all 
things under His (Jesus') feet. But when He 
(Jesus, Matt. 28:18) saith all things are put 
under Him (Jesus) it is manifest that He 
(the Father) is excepted, which did put all 
things under Him (Jesus). And when all 
things shall be subdued unto Him (Jesus) , 
then shall the Son also Himself be subject 
unto Him (the Father) that put all things un- 
der Him (Jesus), that God may be all in all." 
The import of this passage of Scripture is 
that, in order to bring all rebellious things 
into subjection to God, the Father has tem- 
porarily placed Jesus as ruler of all things, 
(See Matt. 28:18. "All power is given unto 
Me in heaven and in earth"), just as the 
government in time of war places the re- 
sources of the realm in the hands of the Pres- 
ident for the attaining of the object desired. 
In this position Jesus Christ must rule until 
He has brought everything into subjection. 
The last thing He will bring into subjection 
is death. The only thing He will not bring 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 213 

into subjection is God the Father, for it is He 
Who has appointed Jesus to this position. 
This reign of Jesus must continue until (vs. 
25) He has brought all things under His own 
feet. When this is done He will then turn 
the kingdom back into the hands of God the 
Father, "that God may be all in all." 

Jesus qualified for this position, as noted 
in a previous lecture, by being perfectly obe- 
dient to God in the position of man, for which 
reason God appointed Him Heir of all things 
(Heb. 1:2). The work of Jesus Christ as ruler 
of the world is the subjection of all the antag- 
onistic forces of the world, and, to an extent, 
of the universe, because sin and its effects 
have spread further than this planet on which 
we live. To what extent it has disturbed the 
whole universe I do not know, but, however 
extensive its baneful effects, Jesus Christ is 
going to put down all rebellion. 

I do not know any human government that 
exactly exemplifies the position Jesus Christ 
holds, but it is somewhat after this manner: 
England is a very wide-spread empire, con- 
sisting not only of its immediate constituen- 
cy in the British Isles, but of provinces scat- 



214 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

tered around the world. These are ruled by 
what may be termed provincial governors. 
Suppose one of these dependencies of Eng- 
land should rebel. The king is not so situ- 
ated that he can go and personally deal with 
that rebellion; so he sends an ambassador as 
provisional governor, empowering him to 
draw on all the resources of the province, and, 
if necessary, the exchequer of the empire, for 
the quelling of the rebellion. When the desir- 
ed end is accomplished, he returns to his king 
and turns the government over to him. In 
some such manner as this Jesus is placed by 
the Father over the affairs of this world. This 
world, as one of the provinces of the kingdom 
of God, has rebelled, and God has sent His 
Son, Jesus Christ, with authority to deal with 
every antagonistic thing, until He has ended 
rebellion and crushed it out. When He has 
every thing subdued and restored, then He 
will turn it back into its proper relationship 
to the throne of God, and then "God will be 
all in all." 

Now the process by which Jesus is going to 
restore the kingdom to God is very remark- 
able one. It is the process of re-creation. 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 215 

There are two steps in His conquest: First, 
submission to authority; second, the exercise 
of authority. The method of Jesus thus far 
has been just the opposite of man's idea of 
conquest. At each stage it has looked as 
though He had surrendered. He came into 
the world as King of the Jews. They would 
not receive Him, and He raised no army to 
try to conquer them. They tried Him, de- 
nounced Him as traitor, crucified Him, and 
He submitted. Death, that great enemy, the 
last one He is to destroy, He submitted to, 
and it apparently destroyed Him. The meth- 
od of Jesus Christ in bringing this world into 
subjection has thus far been very opposite to 
man's idea that it looks as though He would 
never succeed. And yet this is the Christian's 
manner of conquest. The Christian always 
wins by submission to authority, where sin 
it not involved. 

Joseph's career is a remarkable picture of 
the two stages of Jesus' conquest. In read- 
ing the history of Joseph you will notice that 
in the first part of his career the verbs in con- 
nection with his name all show him as being 
acted upon rather than showing him as be- 



216 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

ing actor. Look at a few of them. Jacob 
sent him to his brethren; his brethren hated 
him, and stripped him of his coat of many 
colors; they put him into a pit, they took him 
out of the pit, they sold him to the Ishmael- 
ites; the Ishmaelites brought him to Egypt, 
and the Midianites sold him to Potiphar, and 
Joseph's master took him and put him into 
the prison. Joseph is, all through this part 
of his career, passive. He did not do a thing, 
but every one did things to him. Only once 
in this part of his career does he show any 
spirit of resistance, and that is against temp- 
tation to sin, to which he immediately re- 
sponds, "How can I do this great wickedness 
and sin against God?" Even to the time Jo- 
seph took the second place on the throne we 
:see other people doing things to him, even 
Tiurrying him out of the prison, and appoint- 
ing him governor of Egypt. 

Then the voice of the verbs in Joseph's life 
history is reversed. Henceforth he is the 
doer of everything that is done. A look at 
some of the verbs in this part of Joseph's life 
is instructive. He answers Pharoah, went 
out from Pharoah, went throughout all the 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 217 

land of Egypt, gathered up all the food of the 
seven years; he opened the store houses and 
sold corn. With authority he dictates to the 
brethren who had mistreated him in other 
days, gives directions even to his father and 
provides a home for them in Egypt. 

The first part of Joseph's career pictures 
how Jesus proceeded in the first stage of His 
conquest. The first stage of His conquest was 
that of passive resistance, and the first stage 
of our conquest is of the same character. We 
are to resist nothing but temptation and sin. 
Does the land make a law against Christians 
and put them in prison? They go and say 
nothing. If they take Christians and cut 
their heads off on a block, they quietly sub- 
mit. Are laws made to discriminate against 
Christians? They walk within the prescribed 
limits, peaceful and happy and say nothing, 
and yet they, in this manner, conquer every- 
thing that touches them. Thus Jesus worked 
by love, peacefully, quietly,, unobstrusively, 
and we are to do likewise. 

But there will come a change in His meth- 
od some of these days. He will become the 
doer of things instead of the One others are 



218 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

doing things against. The active stage of Je- 
sus' work, in which He will exercise author- 
ity, will be characterized by the exercise of 
His creative power. His method, whether in 
grace or in material things, is not reforma- 
tion but regeneration. When Jesus finally 
turns the kingdom back to God, He will have 
made every thing new; He who created all 
things in the beginning will re-create them. 
The tracing of the process by which He does 
this will occupy most of our time in this lect- 
ure. 

The Beginning of a New Creation 

In Revelation 21:5 we read: "He that sat 
upon the throne said, Behold, I make all 
things new." That is a pretty large contract, 
but Jesus is the member of the Godhead 
through Whom this great work will be done. 
When anyone does a large piece of work 
they have to make a beginning somewhere, 
and I believe we can trace from Scripture the 
beginning and progress of this work of Jesus 
Christ in making all things new. Let us 
search for the place where He begins. 

Again we find the kev in the book of Rev- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 219 

elation, where we read (Rev. 3:14), " These 
things saith the Amen, the faithful and true 
Witness, the beginning of the creation of 
God." While Jesus it not named in this 
verse, we know by reference to His descrip- 
tion in the first chapter of Revelation that it 
is He Who is the Speaker of the message to 
all these seven churches and that it is He Who 
is here called "the beginning of the creation 
of Gud." 

We must not get things confused when we 
consider Jesus as the beginning of the crea- 
tion of God. It would be a great error to sup- 
pose that Jesus as the second Person in the 
Trinity was the first creature God created, 
for the Word is co-eternal with the Father 
and the Holy Ghost, and therefore never was 
created. The fact that this statement about 
Jesus is made in the last book of the Bible 
instead of in the first, indicates at once that 
it is not the first creation that is under con- 
sideration, but that it is in connection with 
the new creation that Jesus holds the place of 
"Beginning." The original word for "begin- 
ning" is from the same root as that for 
"author" or "beginner." So Jesus is Author, 



220 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Beginner and Beginning of the new creation 
of God. 

A comparison of this text with other texts 
will enlarge the subject to our minds. In Rev. 
3:5 Jesus Christ is called "the first begotten 
of the dead;" that is, the first person over 
whom death has had dominion that has come 
up in the new creation. In Colossians 1:18 
the subject is again referred to: "He is the 
head of the body, the church: Who is the be- 
ginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in 
all things He might have the pre-eminence/' 
And in the 15th verse of the same chapter 
Jesus is called "the firstborn of every creat- 
ure." That is to say, He is the first man who 
is born into the new creation by resurrection. 
There is something about Jesus Christ that is 
the beginning of the new creation that, begin- 
ning in Him, is going to eventually displace 
the old creation, creating anew all that sub- 
mits to Him, and expelling all that opposes 
Him. 

I have never yet been able to trace back in- 
to the intricate depths of the mystery of the 
Person of Jesus Christ to the point where the 
beginning of this mystery can be fixed. So 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 221 

we will begin at a point where the work of the 
new creation is manifest enough to mark a 
distinct stage. Let us carefully examine into 
the resurrection of the body of our Lord as 
given in Scripture. Let us notice that Jesus as 
to His human nature died as dead as anybody 
ever did. In fact in I Thess. 4:14 the word 
used to describe the death of Jesus indicates 
a deeper sense of deadness than the word 
used of the death of His people: "If we be- 
lieve that Jesus died and rose again, even so 
them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring 
with Him." The word used for Jesus' death 
is "died," but for the saints' death it is 
" sleep.' ' It is evident the Scripture would 
have us understand that Jesus experienced 
death in its superlative form. With the 
knowledge that the resurrection of Jesus was 
from such a death as this, let us accompany 
Peter and John as they go to His grave that 
resurrection morning and review the evidence 
of what happened there. Mary Magdalene 
had been to His grave, and, finding it empty, 
ran to tell Peter and John. John by inspira- 
tion tells their experience, in the 20th chapter 
of his Gospel, verses 3 to 8. John outran 



222 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Peter, and came first to the sepulchre, stooped 
down, looked in the open door and saw the 
linen clothes, but hesitated about entering. 
But Peter, coming up later, did not hesitate : 
"Then cometh Simon Peter following him, 
and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the 
linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was 
about His head, not lying with the linen 
clothes, but wrapped together in a place by 
itself. Then went in also that other disciple, 
which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw 
and believed." The whole account may be 
read with profit. 

It is evident there was something in that 
tomb that forever settled any doubts Peter 
and John may have had about the bodily res- 
urrection of Jesus. It could not have been 
the mere fact that the tomb was empty, nor 
could it have been a lot of tumbled-up grave- 
clothes in the floor of the sepulchre. They 
did not see Jesus. It is not stated that they 
saw the angels that appeared to the women; 
but they did see something that established 
their belief in an instant, and it is quite clear 
that it was something about those clothes. 
Ever after the bodily resurrection of Jesus 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 223 

was a strong note in the preaching of both 
Peter and John. 

A comparison of Lazarus' grave with Jesus' 
grave may reveal what it was about those 
clothes that settled Peter's and John's belief. 
I suppose that Lazarus' body was prepared 
for burial in about the same way as that of 
Jesus, but when Jesus raised Lazarus it is re- 
corded, "Be that was dead came forth, bound 
hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his 
face was bound about with a napkin." Before 
he moved someone had to loose his bandages. 
The grave-clothes were doubtless a tangled 
mess when they were finally stripped off. No 
such sight as clothes in that condition could 
have had the effect related of John: "He saw 
and believed." There was a great difference 
between the raising of Lazarus and others 
from the dead and the resurrection of Jesus 
from the dead. The former raising from the 
dead are never called resurrections in the 
Bible. They were merely the restoration of 
life to the earthly body, which in due season 
died again. But His rising from the dead was 
a resurrection which death can never again 
encompass. The people who prepared Jesus' 



224 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

body for burial were wealthy, and I do not 
doubt that they put on plenty of clothes. It 
says in John 19:40, "they took the body of 
Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the 
spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury." 
They wound and wound Him in these strips 
of linen, and worked in a hundred pound 
weight of myrrh and aloes as they went along 
— a temporary embalmment calculated to last 
over the Sabbath. 

Well, when Peter and John looked into the 
empty sepulchre they saw the linen clothes 
lie in such a form that they believed. When- 
ever they preached they testified of the res- 
urrection and stirred the Saducees who did 
not believe in it. It is my firm_conviction, 
borne out in comparison of Scriptures, that 
those clothes looked just as they did when 
Jesus was put in them; that the resurrected 
body, being no more subject to material 
things, had passed right through the clothes, 
and left them lying just as they had been 
wound, and that Peter and John saw at a 
glance that the body had passed through a 
transformation that made it independent of 
material things, afterward demonstrated by 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 225 

His coming among them when doors and win- 
dows were closed. That natural body had 
become a spiritual body. It had been trans- 
formed and changed into a body the like of 
which w T as never in the world before. People 
had been raised from the dead before, but 
never before resurrected. That is the first 
case of resurrection of the body, and I believe 
that is what the Scripture means when it says, 
" Jesus Christ is the first begotten of the 
dead," and "the beginning of the creation 
of God. ?? It looked like a very small begin- 
ning. Think what a small percent of the ma- 
terial of the earth was contained in the body 
of Jesus. But when that body rose in resur- 
rection power a work began that will trans- 
form the universe into a new order. The res- 
urrection of Jesus Christ is the seed-corn of 
the new creation. 

The Progress of the New Creation 

In His work of mailing all things new Jesus 
is proceeding by definite stages. The first 
stage, as we have seen, was the resurrection 
of His own body. The next stage of God's 
new creative work through Christ, is that 



226 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

of the spiritual resurrection of them that ac- 
cept Him as their Savior. The work done in 
the heart of believers in regeneration is of the 
same nature as the resurrection of Jesus. A 
careful reading of Eph. 1 : 19, 20 will suggest 
that fact: "What is the exceeding greatness 
of His power to usward who believe, accord- 
ing to the working of His mighty power, 
which He wrought in Christ when He raised 
Him from the dead." That passage of Scrip- 
ture tells us that the power that works in 
the believer, bringing him up from spiritual 
death to spiritual life, is the same power that 
raised Jesus' body from the dead. In this 
connection it is suggestive to notice Romans 
30:9, giving instruction how to be saved: "If 
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that 
God hath raised Him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved." It is certainly significant 
that the Scriptures single out that one must 
believe that Christ was raised from the dead 
in order to be saved. As mentioned before, 
that is the seed-corn of the new creation. 

For one to confess with His mouth the Lord 
Jesus is to acknowledge his own insufficiency 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 227 

through sin and seek forgiveness of his sins in 
Jesus Christ who suffered as his substitute. 
But forgiveness of sins is not all that is re- 
quired. There must be, simultaneous with 
forgiveness, the impartation with new life, 
and this is wrought by believeing in the heart 
that God raised Jesus from the dead; because 
it is the power that raised Him from the dead 
that transforms sinners from spiritual death 
to spiritual life. This is the next stage of 
Christ 's new creation work, and we are living 
in that stage now. He will not enter on the 
next stage of making all things new until 
He has enough people created anew in spirit 
to constitute His church. In this work we 
as members of His mystical body are privi- 
leged to be helpers. So, if our hearts are 
longing for the day when all will be new we 
can best hasten its coming by submitting to 
His use in this work of getting His church. 

It is important, therefore, for us to inquire 
how we can best further this work. There is 
a certain definite agency Christ is using in 
this second period of His re-creative work, 
and, if we would be effective helpers in this 
great work we will find and use to its utmost 



228 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

this power committed to us. In order to be 
carried through, and become part of the new 
creation of God, our work must be of that 
new creative order, for nothing else is going 
to stand the fires that dissolve the old crea- 
tion. He has just one means that He is giv- 
ing into the hands of His people that they 
may be co-workers in the accomplishment of 
it, and that is the preaching of His Gospel. 
You may clean up a man, make him a nice 
citizen, a good husband, a kind father, but 
unless he is made a new creation in Christ 
Jesus, he is going to drop off with all the 
rest of the old creation. You can go to the 
heathen and teach them how to clothe them- 
selves and educate their children but they 
will perish with the old creation unless their 
spiritual lives are transformed. The thing 
to seek, therefore, is the operation through 
us of the new creative power of God. This 
we can do by being ourselves first regenerat- 
ed and filled with the Holy Ghost, and then 
preach and testify the Gospel. It is our pri- 
vilege to be His ambassadors to ring the 
words of life in other ears, that, like good 
seed, it may spring up and bring souls into 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 229 

this new spiritual kingdom of Christ, which 
is accomplished by being born again. Will 
we not henceforth settle it not to base our 
hopes longer on efforts at reforming men or 
fixing them over but to go to work on the 
one blessed task of getting this Gospel 
preached around the world, for the results 
from that alone will remain when all things 
are made new. 

The Perfecting of the New Creation 

The next creative stage of making all 
things new through Jesus Christ will be the 
resurrection of His church. Nineteen centu- 
ries ago one solitary body, that of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ, was seen by men 
ascending from the Mount of Olives heaven- 
ward. Century after century has rolled on 
without a repetition of that miracle, until 
men declare that the like will never occur 
again. But men have failed to apprehend 
God's program of the new creation. The or- 
der is " Christ the firstfruits; afterward they 
that are Christ's at His coming." Even the 
prophets and Moses said of Christ "that He 
should be the first that should rise from the 



230 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

dead" (Acts 26:22, 23). Between His resur- 
rection and that of His church is the period 
when the members of His church are being 
resurrected in spirit. These resurrected spir- 
its labor in the medium of their natural bod- 
ies for the spread of the Gospel until the 
body wears out and lies down in the tomb to 
await the Lord's time to usher in with trum- 
pet sound the next number of His mighty 
program of making all things new. Then i ' in 
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," "the 
dead shall be raised incorruptible and we 
shall be changed." In a moment after the 
sounding of the trumpet, which will be the 
signal ushering in the next stage of the new 
creation, millions of resurrected bodies of the 
saints will fill the heavens hastening upward 
to meet their descending Lord. Then from 
the catacombs of the early Christian centu- 
ries, from the tombs of ancient and forgot- 
ten martyrs, from lonely scattered graves of 
mission fields, from ocean depths and old and 
dilapidated graveyards, from hillsides and 
valleys and unknown graves, from all places 
where the Gospel has been proclaimed there 
will be an instant when the bodies, long 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 231 

wrapt in silence will come forth in the like- 
ness of the glorified body of Jesus. Graves, 
vine-clad for centuries; graves, newly made, 
and caskets awaiting burial, will yield their 
contents as recruits to the ascending army, 
and the living saints who look for His appear- 
ing, dropping their clothes and being clothed 
upon from heaven, will join the mighty host- 
Thus another stage of God's new creation 
will swing into line. 

The Completion of the New Creation 

Following this will be the Millennium 
the preparatory age for the final number om 
God's great program of re-creation. At its 
close will be the judgment of the great white 
throne, when the wicked dead, and doubtless 
the wicked angels, will be gathered for the 
final assize. As a result of that great trial 
of the wicked every one who has not willing- 
ly submitted to the power of God when he 
had the opportunity in this life will be cast 
off into the lake of fire to suffer its everlast- 
ing torments. 

It seems likely that the entire inanimate 
creation will be changed by the creative act 



232 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

of God, but that every one endowed with will 
power will determine for himself whether he 
will have part in the new creation. Man is 
given the privilege of choosing whether he 
will be in that new creation or not. It lies 
with us, whether we will be in the new crea- 
tion, or whether we will be relegated to the 
lake of fire. We are going to decide it, and it 
is decided by our acceptance or rejection of 
Jesus Christ. It may seem to some that this 
is not of very much importance ; that going 
to meeting is just a little diversion for Sun- 
day, and preaching a kind of Sunday enter- 
tainment where the preacher airs his opin- 
ions. But a true Gospel meeting is your op- 
portunity to decide for the new creation, and 
true Gospel preaching a call for you to pre- 
pare. You lend a deaf ear to the call of the 
evangelist at your peril. You will go on and 
fill your little niche in this present creation, 
and pass away; but there is an opportunity 
for you to be transformed into that new crea- 
tion, become a co-worker with Jesus, and live 
with Him in the new creation. 

After the great white throne judgment, as 
we have in a measure anticipated, there will 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 233 

be the last great re-creative stage. It is men- 
tioned in Rev. 21:1 and in II Peter 3:13. It 
is noticeable that the two apostles who "saw 
and believed" at the empty sepulchre of Je- 
sus are the human authors of these passages. 
They who saw that beginning of the new 
creation, in vision saw also the final stage 
of it. John says, "I saw a new heaven and a 
new earth; for the first heaven and the first 
earth were passed away." Peter says, "Nev- 
ertheless we according to His promise, look 
for new heavens and a new earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." 

It should be noticed in passing that the 
first creation is not going to be annihilated 
in order to give place to the new creation. 
We must use Bible terms with Bible mean- 
ings. In II Peter 3 : 6, in describing the pass- 
ing away of the w^orld before the flood, it 
says, "the world that then was, being over- 
flowed with water, perished." We know, 
however from the Old Testament description 
that the world after the flood was composed 
of the same matter as the world before the 
flood. So where it uses in verses 10 and 12 
in the same chapter the words "melt," "be 



234 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

burned up," and " dissolved" it does not 
thereby mean annihilation, but these words 
are descriptive of the great transformation 
the world will go through whereby it will be- 
come a part of the new creation. This is con- 
sistent with the preceding stages of the new 
creation. The body of Jesus was not annihil- 
ated, for He demonstrated conclusively to 
His disciples that His resurrected body was 
His former body transformed. Nor are our 
spirits annihilated to make room for the new 
creation that results from regeneration, but 
those spirits are transformed. Nor are our 
bodies going to be annihilated and a new 
body given in resurrection, but, "we shall be 
changed." 

Notice again the order of this new creation: 
first is Christ the firstfruits; then the power 
4 i according to the working of His mighty pow- 
er" whereby we are regenerated; then the 
resurrection of those who are "Christ's at 
His coming;" and, finally, the new heavens 
and the new earth. Observe how, according 
to Col. 1: 17, "He is before all things, and by 
Him all things consist," and how He is gath- 
ering "together in one all things in Christ." 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 235 

That mighty power, which had its first man- 
ifestation in the raising of Christ from the 
dead, will have its final manifestation in the 
transformation of the universe. 

Our Affinity for Christ 

Did you as a Christian ever feel your lack 
of affinity with the present order of things? 
If you are sanctified it has doubtless been 
more manifest to you. There have been times 
when you have felt so lonely in the world 
where everything else is of another order of 
creation, only now and then touching some- 
thing that is of your own order. Were it not 
for the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, it would 
be a lonely life indeed to be a Christian. We 
cannot always tell by looking into a person's 
face whether or not he is converted, though 
it is often manifest. But there is an affinity 
of spirit that makes us at home immediately 
in the companionship, even of some strang- 
ers, that is not felt in the company of others, 
even better known. I believe that, if we 
studied more carefully the movements of the 
Spirit, we could perhaps tell every converted 
not met strangers that when you looked in 



236 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

their faces you inwardly shrank from them? 
But they talked so nice, and said so many 
excellent things, that you reasoned that they 
must be all right. And then you fellow- 
shipped together and told your spiritual se- 
crets to them, but afterward you felt sick at 
your spiritual stomach and wondered why. 

Then there are other folks you have met, 
common-place folks; nothing very stylish 
about their clothes. You sit down in the car 
by the side of them, and they seem homelike, 
as though you and they had always known 
each other. They talk without much show 
of education, but after you have ridden along 
with them, and they get off at some station, 
you say good-bye as though you were saying 
it to one of the best friends you ever had. 
There was fellowship there because you both 
belonged to the new creation- 
One of the crosses of the Christian in this 
world is this lack of affinity; meeting so much 
that is not of the same order of creation that 
he is. Then there is the same antipathy on 
the part of the sanctified Christian for the 
institutions of the world. Organizations for 
mutual helpfulness, not on the Christian ba- 
sis; philanthropic undertakings for humani- 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 237 

ty's sake only, and even the church itself as 
it is conducted when it becomes an integral 
part of the community in which it is located 
instead of a rebuke to the sinners in it. 

Then there is a lack of affinity between our 
spirits and our bodies. Our spirits are of 
the new creation, and our bodies, including 
our brains, of the old. For this reason it is 
necessary to keep under our bodies and bring 
them into subjection- (I Cor. 9: 27). "Body" 
here does not mean the carnal nature, which 
is crucified in sanctification, but our physi- 
cal nature. Even the appetites that are right 
for the body need curbing. Mistakes in judg- 
ment also occur as a result of our yet imper- 
fect bodily functions of mind. Then, too, our 
spirits outrun the body, and it Avearies in the 
race. But some of these days this body is 
going to be changed so it will absolutely re- 
spond to the impulse of the spirit along every 
line. We will not have to drag these old 
bodies along with automobiles and hitch up 
a big iron horse to get our bodies where our 
spirits list, but we will think, and we will 
be there. 

Even in the Millennium, when we may 
come down and visit this old world, we may 



238 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

still find a lack of affinity here, because sur- 
roundings have not yet changed into that 
new creation. But when the final re-crea- 
tive word of the Son of God has been spoken, 
and heaven and earth and universe have been 
transformed, we will at last be in the midst 
of a perfect affinity, in which our new-crea- 
tion spirits and bodies will move in perfect 
harmony and unison; where we can follow 
always the impulse of the spirit, for there 
will be no temptation to do or say anything 
contrary to what God wants. 

When Jesus will have turned the kingdom 
back into the hand of God, and God is all m 
all, when all through the vast realms of His 
universe there is not a finger of opposition 
raised against His will, not a foot steps astray 
from the path He wants it to go, not a man 
has a thought contrary to His will, not a 
heart that does not beat in unison with the 
throbs of His great heart, what a glorious 
time we will have! Hallelujah! 

A Universe Immune from Sin 

Some one who remembers the lecture about 
Lucifer may ask, if, back there in that early 
creation that did not have sin in it, this great 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 239 

archangel Lucifer in some way spontaneous- 
ly developed iniquity within himself, and led 
away a multitude of angels and thus corrupt- 
ed the first creation, what is there to hinder 
a repitition of the same process that will cor- 
rupt the new creation? That is a very natu- 
ral question. We want to know when we get 
over there if there is any liability of that 
thing happening again. It looks as though 
sin started spontaneously once without any- 
thing to start it, and why may it not do that 
again? Perhaps an analogy from nature 
will he]p us. There are epidemics that some- 
times go through communities. Sometimes 
they seem to originate spontaneously and 
then spread all through a community unless 
checked. Such, for instance, is small pox, 
that once was such a dread to people. When 
there comes a wide-spread epidemic of small 
pox there is always difficulty in obtaining 
nurses. The best nurse is a person who has 
had the disease and recovered from it, tor 
such a one is proof against taking it again. 

You know, also, that they have a preven- 
tive method of vaccination to prevent per- 
sons from taking the disease. It does not 



240 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

give perfect immunity, but may serve as an 
analogy that may help us a little. 

Another imperfect, but illustrative, anal- 
ogy may be drawn from the use of anti-toxin 
in combating diphtheria. When a child im- 
bibes diphtheria, I understand, the white cor- 
puscles of the Hood, sometimes called the 
" soldiers of the blood," combat the disease 
germs, even multiplying greatly in number, 
and, not infrequently, they succeed in driving 
the disease germs out of the child's system, 
so that it recovers without artificial assist- 
ance. But sometimes there is an infusion of 
the disease, or such a quantity of the germs, 
that they overcome these white corpuscles, 
and, as a result, the child dies, unless help 
is introduced from some other source. And 
this is what anti- toxin is designed to do. I 
do not fully understand its manufacture, but 
may be able to say enough to illustrate my 
point. As I understand it diphtheria germs 
are introduced into the blood of some healthy 
animal, like the horse, as a result of which 
the blood in that horse will also form white 
corpuscles, which are extracted to form the 
anti-toxin, and by putting this into the 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 241 

child's veins it is enabled to throw off all the 
diphtheria germs and recover. 

Now, with these imperfect illustrations in 
mind let us consider what kind of popula- 
tion the new heavens and earth will have. 
There will be a large population of angels. 
These angels were in heaven when Lucifer 
fell and spread the sin disease through the 
realm. There were a third of the angels that 
caught the contagion and died spiritually 
with him. The other two-thirds were ex- 
posed, but did not fall under its power, thus 
demonstrating that they were immune from 
sin. Then there will be men redeemed from 
the earth. In this class we will be. We have 
all had sin; we all caught the contagion and 
it was sure death to us. But God devised a 
plan to cure the disease. He took His only 
Son, Jesus Christ, and combined a human na- 
ture with His Divine nature. On Him He 
laid the penalty of man's sin, illustrated by 
the way the doctor laid the penalty of diph- 
theria on the horse. Because of His Deity 
Jesus has been able in His human nature to 
endure the penalty of sin; He has tasted death 
for every man, and offers the benefit of His 
blood, the anti-toxin for sin, freely to whoso- 



242 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

ever will. I believe in the Blood cure, the 
anti-toxin for sin, furnished from the veins 
of the Son of God, the Son of man. 

Thus, when we come into the new creation, 
there will be the angels that are \ immune 
from sin, because they have stood the test 
of Lucifer, and a multitude of human beings 
who ha* e had sin and been cured, and we 
are immune. So we will have an immune 
universe. Sin cannot get a hold on that 
universe anywhere. The devil himself, if he 
should ever get there and stalk through the 
courts of heaven, could not spread contagion 
in a realm like that. So God is going to have 
a aew creation, a heaven and earth where sin 
can never enter and never break out spon- 
taneously. Hallelujah to the Lord! 

The Call to be Freed from Sin 

In view of what we have seen of sin in 
these lectures, and of its glorious remedy, I 
want to inquire if you have had that immun- 
ity applied to your heart. We are moving on 
toward that glorious city. We are getting 
nearer every day. There is really greater 
lie .^l of this immunity down in this old world 
with its atmosphere, that has in its every 



IN HISTORY AND PROPHECY 243 

breath a temptation, than there is going to 
be over there. But this is where we must get 
vaccinated in order to be sin-proof forever. 
If you do not have this immunity from sin, 
you can have it if you will just bare your 
heart to the cleansing Blood. 

The One Remedy for Sin 

When one has experienced in his own heart 
the delivering power of the anti-toxin for 
sin, it becomes our duty to advertise its mer- 
its to others. That is what the church is 
here to do. Since the blood of Jesus is the 
only remedy, what is the use of advertising 
anything else ? If a physician had found one 
remedy that would cure all diseases, what 
need would he have to carry around a lot of 
pills and powders'? Then, when every Chris- 
tian has been given the one remedy for sin, 
why be burdened with a hundred other 
things ? While we cannot persuade all men 
to receive the remedy, there is no use trying 
other things on them; for, though they might 
receive other things, they would not cure 
them. How it must weary the Lord to see 
the people who profess to be His carrying 
around a great lot of social service schemes 



244 WORLD GOVERNMENT 

in an attempt to relieve people a little. It is 
appalling to consider the things the church 
is spending her money for, and her efforts in 
what can never take away sin, when we have 
one remedy that will cure them, and if they 
will not accept that, we may as w r ell leave 
the case and hunt up another. There are 
about a thousand million who have not been 
reached yet. I wonder if we are going to be 
fooled about it longer. It is the one thing 
that will cure the sin disease, the one thing 
that will take trouble out of the home, ( the 
one thing that will solve the trouble of neigh- 
bors between each other, the trouble of wives 
with husbands, and school teachers and every 
one else. 

Eradicate sin until it will not work any 
more in your system. Call the great Physi- 
cian today, and let Him make you new, so 
when the trumpet sounds you will go to be 
forever with the Lord. Praise God for the 
prospect of all things being made new in Je- 
sus Christ. 

FINIS 



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